Making Their Way
by Nerin
Summary: Part One of a twopart series called The Gilmore Way. Lorelai and Rory begin their journey together. Slightly AU. Complete!
1. Rory's Birthday

_A/N: A sequel of sorts to my fic Gilmore Beginnings. I own absolutely nothing except for some books and movies. Please don't sue me._

"Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dear Rory, Happy Birthday to you!" Lorelai and Mia clapped their hands wildly as Rory grinned up at them from in front of her cake. She looked back at the flickering candle and waved at it. Lorelai leaned over and blew lightly, and the flame disappeared. Mia and Lorelai cheered as Rory studied the candle seriously, searching for the light that had been there moments before.

Lorelai placed a slice of the cake in front of Rory and turned to Mia.

"Unbelievable," she said as Rory attacked the cake with gusto. "No word from Christopher. None at all. He knows where we are, he's been here, he's called, and he doesn't call on her birthday."

"Will you see your parents today?"

"Yeah, they're coming over later. But I still can't believe Christopher hasn't…"

"Excuse me, Mia," said Tyler, the concierge, as he walked into the office. "There's someone here to see you, Lorelai."

Lorelai looked at Mia, wide-eyed, and picked Rory up. Rory squealed in protest, frosting covering her small face, but Lorelai carried her out into the lobby. Sure enough, there he was, dark eyes sparkling and dangerous smile flashing.

"Christopher," Lorelai breathed.

Rory had poked her right hand into her mouth, and she sucked at the frosting-covered fingers while staring at Christopher with wide eyes.

"Hey, Lore. Rory! There's my little birthday girl!" He walked towards her and held out his hands as if he was going to take her into his arms. Rory shrank back into her mother's embrace, eyeing Christopher distrustfully.

"It's been awhile," Lorelai said conversationally. "She doesn't recognize you." She turned to Rory. "This is Daddy, Rory."

"Dada?" Rory asked.

"Yeah, Dada," Christopher said, moving closer. "Don't you recognize my voice? Come on, let me hold you." He reached out and took her gently from Lorelai, and Rory continued to study him. Christopher grinned into her cake-covered face. "She takes after you too much, Lore."

Lorelai crossed her arms. "Well, you aren't around enough for her to take after you."

Christopher frowned. "I try, Lore, I really do. After school lets out, I'll be able to come and stay for awhile."

Rory looked between her parents with a worried expression on her face.

"I hope your Mommy and Daddy will let you. Or have they grounded you for procreating?"

"Cut it out," Christopher said through gritted teeth. "You're upsetting Rory."

"I'm upsetting Rory!" Lorelai exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "_I'm_ upsetting Rory? _You_ are the person who doesn't bother to come and…" She took a deep breath. "Know what? Forget it." She turned and stormed away, arms waving in the air as she muttered furiously to herself.

Christopher held Rory up and looked into her eyes. "Hey, beautiful girl," he said softly. "Let's go hang out, whaddaya say?"

* * *

Lorelai burst into the kitchen, grumbling under her breath. She paced in front of the sink, and then grabbed a brush and began scrubbing the dishes in the sink with intense concentration. She didn't even notice that someone had approached her, and when that person cleared his throat to get her attention, she nearly jumped out of her skin. 

"Hey, sorry," the unfamiliar boy said with a grin. "Didn't mean to scare you. Ya know, if you keep scrubbing that way there won't be any pans left."

Lorelai laughed weakly and dropped the brush into the water. "Sorry about that. I'm sort of a nervous cleaner."

"Makes my job easier," he answered, leaning against the sink.

"I've never seen you around before," Lorelai said. "You must be new, because I'm in here a lot."

"My name's Kyle. Jason's my uncle, and I've started helping him out to earn some extra cash after school." He looked her up and down appreciatively, and Lorelai blushed and smiled. "I haven't seen you around, either. Are you a senior, or…"

"Actually I don't go to school," Lorelai explained. "I just work here for Mia."

"Really? So have you graduated or something?"

"Lore!" came Christopher's panicked voice. "Your daughter just puked all over my leather jacket!"

Lorelai rolled her eyes at Kyle. "I have to go," she said. "I'll see you around?"

"Uh, yeah," Kyle said slowly. "Your – daughter?"

"Yeah, my daughter Rory. She's a year old today."

"Right. Well, I have to get home anyway, so I'll – just – go."

Lorelai raised one eyebrow. "Whatever." And she left to rescue Christopher from their child's expert marksmanship.

She laughed when she saw Christopher, holding Rory out at arm's length, his expensive jacket decorated with half-digested cake.

"That's my girl!" she said, taking Rory away and wiping her face with her spitcloth. "Christopher, just go into a bathroom and rinse it off with a washcloth."

"I'm gonna smell like digestive fluids all day," he grumbled as he gingerly shrugged the coat off his shoulders.

"Dada!" Rory called, waving a chubby hand after him. He broke into a reluctant grin and waved back as he walked down the hall to find an empty room with a bathroom.

* * *

"Gamma!" Rory cried when her grandparents walked into the dining room, where she, Lorelai, and Christopher were waiting. She toddled up to her grandmother and held her arms in the air. 

Emily smiled and scooped the little girl into her arms. "Happy Birthday, Rory," she said. "Have you been a good girl?"

Rory nodded vigorously. "Good girl."

Emily looked up at her daughter and Christopher and her smile faded. Richard caught sight of the boy at the same time, and his eyes narrowed as his hands tightened into fists.

Christopher cleared his throat nervously. "Hello, Mrs. Gilmore. Mr. Gilmore." He didn't dare look Richard in the face.

"Christopher," Emily said coolly. She might have said more, but she was distracted by Rory, who was hanging over her shoulder in her effort to reach her grandfather.

"Gampa!" she demanded, her tiny fingers brushing the sleeve of his coat. His expression softened as he looked away from Christopher and focused on the baby reaching for him. He unceremoniously pulled her out of Emily's arms and hugged her gently.

"When did you arrive, Christopher?" Emily asked, pulling out a chair next to her daughter.

"About two hours ago," he answered nervously. "Lore told me where this place was so I could come see Rory today, and, well, here I am."

"Yes, here you are," Richard said brusquely. "And how often do you bother to be here, young man?"

Christopher blanched. "Well, uh, I come as often as I can, sir. After school, you know."

"And after school? What do you plan to do?"

"Well, I'll be able to come and see Lorelai and Rory a lot, but other than that I'll probably just try and get a job."

"And at some point, I'm sure, you'll be solvent enough to support your family?"

"Dad…" Lorelai said warningly.

"Well…I guess…if that's what Lore wants…"

"It's _not_," Lorelai insisted, standing up abruptly.

"Lorelai," Emily said through thin lips, "Christopher is willing to do the right thing and marry you, and you're simply being stubborn."

"Mom, Christopher has the chance to _do_ something. I don't want to keep him from that. Sure, I expect him to be able to pay child support and I want him to visit as often as he can. But I _don't want to marry him_!"

"When you get pregnant, you get married," Emily said tightly. "He can see it, but you apparently cannot."

"He doesn't want to get married any more than I do. We'd be tied down, and we're too young for that. He'll never admit it, but he doesn't want to marry me!"

"Um, I'm standing right here!" Christopher said indignantly.

"You've done quite enough here, boy," Richard snapped.

"I'm not a boy," Christopher said through gritted teeth.

Rory, who had been watching the scene from her grandfather's arms with increasing confusion, screwed up her little face and began to cry. Lorelai marched over to her father and took her daughter away from Richard.

"You've made her cry!" she said, sounding close to tears herself. "On her birthday! I wanted you all to celebrate with us, but if you're always going to do this, I never want to see you again!" She turned and ran out of the room.

* * *

"I didn't mean for that to happen, Lore," Christopher said quietly from the doorway of the potting shed. 

"It wasn't you," Lorelai said, stroking Rory's hair as she slept. "It was _them_. It's always them. They couldn't even just enjoy her birthday."

"They just want what they think is best for us."

"So did the Montagues and the Capulets, and didn't everything just turn out great for them?"

Christopher grinned and walked over to her, rubbing her shoulders. "We'll turn out better."

"Of course we will," Lorelai answered, leaning into the massage. "We've got Rory."


	2. Potties and Pictures

_Standard disclaimer applies._

"Potty!" Rory exclaimed, running out of the bathroom, arms outstretched.

"What a good girl!" Lorelai said, scooping her up and hugging her. "You did it!"

"Potty!"

"My big girl." The telephone rang, and Lorelai eyed it suspiciously. She switched Rory to one hip and picked it up. "Hi-lo?"

"Hey, Lore."

"Christopher."

"What's new?"

"Well…you have _amazing _timing," she said with a huge smile. "Your daughter just mastered the art of the potty."

"That's my young Padawan. The Force is strong with her."

"You watched Star Wars last night, didn't you?"

"I'll never confess. How about I take you and the genius-daughter out to dinner to celebrate?"

Lorelai paused. "Oh…Christopher, I'm not sure that's such a great idea…Rory doesn't handle restaurants very well."

"Well, then, just you. Have Mia baby-sit." She didn't answer. "Come on, Lore," he wheedled. "I haven't had time alone with you in months."

"There's a reason for that," Lorelai said. "Her name is Rory and she bears a striking resemblance to me."

"Hey! She's got my ears. My chin, too."

"The last time we spent any amount of time together, it resulted in this little miracle who just poo-pooed in her potty for the first time."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"No…yes…Christopher, don't confuse me." She set Rory down on the floor with her blocks. "We can't keep seeing each other like we're still in high school. I have a job, I'm trying to work my way up to manager."

"Wow."

"What?"

"You sound like…a grown-up."

"Christopher, we _are_ grown-ups now. We have a kid we have to raise and support and…"

"Lorelai, I'm still in _high school_. I'm struggling to pass junior English, and you're talking about promotions and retirement plans."

"I said nothing about retirement plans."

"You know what I mean. I'm not ready to grow up yet."

"Well, Peter Pan, you really don't have a choice, do you? You made that choice about two years ago!"

"This wasn't what I wanted to happen."

"Well, this is what happened, and you can't change that!"

Christopher sighed. "Look, I have to go. Tell Rory Daddy loves her."

Lorelai bit her lip to keep the tears from falling. "She won't know what that means unless you're around to show her."

"I'll see you later. 'Bye."

Lorelai hung up and put her hands over face for a few minutes before sitting next to Rory, who had piled three blocks on top of each other. She gathered Rory into her arms and squeezed her tightly. "Daddy loves you," she whispered.

* * *

Sometimes Emily got out the photo albums and sat with them, studying the past, hoping to find some clue as to what had gone wrong. The pictures were not reliable, though, displaying as they did only one instant and one emotion as opposed to the hundreds of other moments and feelings that may have occurred before and after the shutter clicked and the bulb flashed.

The early pictures were the easiest to read: Lorelai at her baptism, on her first and second birthdays, and then a giant gap until junior high, because Lorelai had become convinced that her toddler head was too big for her body and rendered her deformed. Emily had never found the words to tell her that she had been the most beautiful baby she had ever seen, despite the size of her head and her penchant for trouble.

In junior high Lorelai's character began to emerge. On her twelfth birthday she posed politely with her elaborate new party dress and beamed with delight at the candy necklace Christopher had given her. And as she grew older the smile became generic and the eyes unexpressive, until all the photos looked as if the same face had been cut out and pasted onto every pose: the same unwavering gaze, the same insincere smile. Emily turned the pages relentlessly, watching with increasing unease the evolution of her daughter from the eager and animated girl to the suppressed and wary young woman. She flipped from beginning to end and back again, searching for the one moment when Lorelai had become what she was.

The last picture was almost too much for Emily. The black-haired sixteen-year-old with the peaches-and-cream complexion and electric blue eyes was breathtaking in her gleaming white debutante gown. She would have been the belle of the DAR debutante ball that season, but the gown was too small. Emily had had it pinned so that it looked right for the portrait, ranting about seamstresses and incorrect measurements, while Lorelai stood there, glacially cold, impossibly beautiful, and frighteningly solemn. At the time Emily had thought she was just being difficult. Now she stared at the picture wondering how she had not seen it. The eyes were dark with secrets, resignation, determination…and fear. The fear of the miracle and curse of women, the knowledge of ages, stared up at Emily from the face of a child, _her_ child, and she cursed herself for not noticing it earlier. How had she borne it, this girl-woman, watching her childhood, her adolescence, her future plans wiped out by a single thin pink line? What had gone through her mind as, in the space of minutes, she became an adult?

Richard didn't know about the hours she spent in Lorelai's room, smoothing the quilt that was never disturbed, fluffing the pillows that were never slept on, and rearranging the dollhouse furniture that had never been touched. He didn't know that at night she would sneak out of their bedroom and down the hall to the nursery and sit in her grandmother's rocking chair and stare at the tiny crib that had been occupied for so short a time. She didn't know what to do with herself. She felt incomplete and unsatisfied. Her daughter, after all, had grown up before her time. By all rights her usefulness should have extended another year or two.

But Lorelai didn't need her. Hadn't needed her for years, in fact, even before the intrusion of Christopher and the advent of Rory. That wretched independence had thwarted Emily's plans time and again, and now she found herself completely obsolete, and it was the most frightening thing she had ever experienced. She had been raised to be a wife and a mother, and that was what she was. What else could she be?

She had thrown herself whole-heartedly into her social activities, giving to those women and those groups the passion and the commitment that Lorelai would never allow to be bestowed upon herself. But sometimes she would sit in that room, take out those photo albums, and wish for the impossible, dream of what could have been.

* * *

"Rory, don't run!" Lorelai called as Rory toddled down the hallway ahead of her. Instead of heeding her mother's warning, however, Rory sped up, giggling hysterically. Lorelai sighed and left her cart, hurrying after her daughter before she could fall and hurt herself. "Rory!"

She walked into the room Rory had ducked into and saw Elena, one of the other maids, trying to shoo her away. "Go on, get out of here," she said. "Go, little pest!"

"Hey!" Lorelai protested, hands on her hips. "My daughter is not a pest!"

Elena glared at her. "She's bothering me. Keep her under control, will you?"

"I'm doing my best, Elena. What do you want me to do, put a shock collar on her?"

"Sounds fine to me," Elena muttered under her breath, but Lorelai heard her.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" she demanded.

"Great way to talk around a two-year-old."

"Um, you just suggested I put a shock collar on a toddler, and you have the _nerve_ to criticize the way I talk?" Lorelai felt her temper rise dangerously.

"She gets in the way!"

"She does _not_ get in the way! What was she doing? Stealing the pillow mints?"

"Look, it's not my fault you can't control your little bastard."

The color drained from Lorelai's face and her eyes blazed. "Take that back. Now."

"Why should I? It's the truth, and you'd both better get used to hearing it. That's what you call babies who don't have fathers and are being raised by their slut mothers."

Lorelai flew at the other maid, landing a solid punch right on her nose. Elena screamed and ran from the room, and Lorelai, forgetting Rory for a moment, chased her out into the hall and down the stairs to the lobby. She dove for the other girl's legs and both of them fell to the floor, kicking and screaming. Two of the waiters rushed in from the dining room and pulled Lorelai off of Elena and held her tight. When Mia ran out into the lobby, Lorelai was still struggling to break away from her captors, and Elena was being supported by Tyler and another waiter, nursing her bleeding nose.

"What is going on here?" Mia demanded, and the lobby went completely silent.

"Lorelai attacked me," Elena cried. "She hit me and then chased me down here!"

"Lorelai?" Mia gasped, turning to the flushed, wild-eyed girl.

"You bet I did," she growled. "I'd do it again, too."

"In my office, both of you," Mia snapped.

When the three of them were seated in the office and Rory had been put into Tyler's care, Mia asked again what had happened.

"Lorelai attacked me," Elena repeated.

"Why?"

"I don't know!"

"You rotten liar," Lorelai snapped. "You know _exactly_ why!"

"Lorelai did you hit Elena?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Lorelai's shoulders slumped, and her eyes filled with tears. "She was mean to Rory."

Mia's brow furrowed. "Mean to Rory? What do you mean?"

"She called her a bastard. And a pest. And told me to put a shock collar on her."

Mia gaped at her, and then turned to Elena. "Elena?"

Elena looked at the carpet, and then into Mia's eyes. "Does it matter what I say? Lorelai's your favorite, though God only knows why. She and that little…kid show up and stare at you with those big eyes and…"

"That's quite enough," Mia said sternly. "Whatever your opinions about Lorelai, Rory, and the morality of their situation, they are unimportant to your work here. If you feel you cannot work with Lorelai, by all means feel free to leave."

Elena shook her head and stood. "I'll keep my mouth shut."

"You'd better," Lorelai threatened, "or I'll make sure it's wired shut. Permanently."

"Be quiet, Lorelai," Mia chided her. "You aren't out of hot water yet."

Elena smirked and walked out the door. Mia turned to Lorelai.

"Lorelai, you can't brawl with every person who insults you or Rory."

"You didn't hear what she said, Mia! She was hateful! Evil!"

"Unfortunately, you'll run into hate and evil everywhere. I'm sorry, dear, but your…unconventional…life will sometimes expose you and Rory to very unkind remarks."

"It's not fair. I might have made a mistake, but I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't give up Rory. Ever. I don't care what people think about it, and I won't let anyone talk about Rory like that!"

"Oh, sweetheart," Mia sighed, giving the forlorn girl a hug, "you can't change things by fighting. If you raise Rory to be the incredible woman you want her to be, you'll have proved every hateful and evil person wrong. Focus on that, and you can't go wrong, I promise."

Lorelai looked up at her, tears glistening in her eyes. "She's so wonderful. Why can't they just love her? Can't they see how lovable she is?"

"_You_ can see her potential, Lorelai. You're the only one who needs to. If you believe in her, she'll believe in herself, and that'll be enough in the end. You'll see."

_A/N: I wanted to revisit Emily again because I haven't had the chance to so far, and I find her character fascinating. I hope this chapter's not too angsty, though. RnR!_


	3. Seuss and San Jose

_A/N: Thank you all for your comments; they mean the world to me!_

_ProFfeSser: I know about Lorelai burning her baby pictures, but I was acting on the premise that Emily might have had one or two in her room somewhere, like on her vanity perhaps, that Lorelai didn't get hold of. I did reference the Great Photo Bonfire in Chapter Two._

The evening sun slanted down onto the small potting shed, where Lorelai and Rory sat in cheap plastic lawn chairs and listened to the soft ballads that drifted across the pond from the ivory-colored marquee. Rory had plucked a daisy and was very carefully removing the petals with an expression of immense concentration. Lorelai gazed across the water and watched the wedding guests dance gracefully, like figures in a music box.

If all had gone according to plan, today would be Lorelai's high school graduation day. She would be wearing a deep red robe and a mortar board on her head, possibly with the yellow valedictorian or salutatorian sash around her neck. She would walk across the stage, take the diploma from the headmaster, smile at her parents' photographer, and sit down again. That night she would have put on some ugly dress and gone downstairs for an incredibly boring dinner with fifty of her parents' closest friends before sneaking out a window and onto the back of Christopher's motorcycle.

And if all had gone according to plan, she would not have Rory. Whenever she began to have even the smallest regrets, whenever she began to think about graduating high school and going to Harvard, far away from Richard and Emily, and breaking the mold by becoming an independent and professional woman instead of a trophy wife, she would think of Rory.

Rory would graduate high school. Rory would go to Harvard. Rory would set the world on fire, and Lorelai would help her do it.

Rory reached for their latest Dr. Seuss book, _The Cat in the Hat_, and waved it at her mother. "Cat in hat!" she insisted. "Cat in hat!"

Lorelai stifled a groan and pulled Rory into her lap and opened the book. Rory loved hearing stories, and was often found sitting in front of an open book, muttering nonsense words to herself as she pretended to read. As they read through the book, Rory enthusiastically pointed to the illustrations whenever Lorelai said a word that she recognized. "Cat" made Rory squeal with excitement and tap the picture several times with her finger. "Hat" produced the same effect. When they had read through the book, Rory awkwardly climbed down from her mother's lap and ran into the house, probably to get another book. Lorelai followed her, but stopped just inside the door, looking around.

The shed was too small. Not always, but right now she was feeling claustrophobic. Nervously she reached out and took _Corduroy_ away from Rory. "Rory, let's go for a walk," she said gently.

Rory nodded. "Can Mia come?"

"Mia has to work, sweets. Let's just walk around a little bit."

"Okay." Rory grabbed Lorelai's hand and they walked out of the house.

* * *

Somehow, Lorelai wasn't sure how, they'd ended up walking past Stars Hollow High, where a sea of kids in red and white graduation robes were tossing their mortar boards in the air, cheering.

"Perfect," Lorelai muttered. "Just what I need to make me feel better." The crowd on the field broke apart and scattered, and Lorelai and Rory were about to walk away when Lorelai heard her name.

"Lorelai! What are you doing out here?"

"Hey, Sookie," Lorelai said to the radiant red-head who had sailed up to her in white polyester. Sookie St. James regularly popped up in the kitchen at the inn, asking Jason about this spice or that sauce, and generally causing chaos wherever she went. "Congratulations. I didn't know graduation was today. What's next for you?"

"Culinary school," Sookie said with an excited giggle. "I'm hoping I can get a job at the Independence Inn."

"Oh, wow," Lorelai said, impressed. "Making those dreams come true, right?"

"Yep! It's so exciting."

"We were just heading home…so…"

"Hey, do you want to come to my graduation party? I know you don't get out much, and there'll be lots of people our age there. My mom could probably watch out for Rory for a little while."

Lorelai paused. "Well…I…"

"Oh, come on, it'll be fun!"

"Well, okay," Lorelai finally relented, trying not to remember how long it had been since she'd hung out with people her own age.

* * *

Excited graduates were teeming in the St. James's front yard, where Sookie's father – renowned in Stars Hollow for his barbecues – manned a grill full of hot dogs and hamburgers. Sookie steered Lorelai inside, introduced her to Mrs. St. James, who was immediately struck by Rory's charms, and then took her back out front and pointed her toward the cooler of sodas. Lorelai unearthed a Coke and opened it, looking around at the swarm of teenagers.

She felt much older than everyone around her. Whenever she happened to casually join a group she found herself either annoyed and bored, or restless and jealous. Some of them talked about the latest gossip, others about their future plans, until she wanted to scream. She sipped at her Coke and wandered around the yard, occasionally nodding at someone who happened to look in her direction. When she found an empty bench, she sat and watched the crowd, hoping she didn't look too out of place. A young man sauntered over and sat next to her.

"Hey."

Lorelai looked up with a smile. "Hi."

"Great party," he said, gesturing at the crowd.

"Oh, yeah, great," she answered.

"You from around here?"

"Oh, I've only lived here a couple of years. I'm actually from Hartford."

"Hartford, huh? Cool place."

"Yup." Lorelai held in a sigh.

"Hey, some of us are driving up to Hartford. Supposed to be some wild parties going on tonight. You, uh, want to come along?"

"Oh, I don't know," she demurred. "That's a long way out."

"You sure?" He inched closer and put a hand on her knee. "I'd make it worth your while."

Lorelai glanced down at his hand, carefully uncrossing her legs and moving away. "I don't think my daughter would want me to be gone that long."

Mr. Feel-Good blinked in surprise. "Your daughter?"

"That's right. Rory. My two-year-old. She doesn't really like it when I leave, but hey, if you're going to make sure I have a good time, I'm sure I could hire a baby-sitter. I'd have to be back early, though."

"Oh…well…don't, uh…don't upset her," Mr. Feel-Good stammered. "I shouldn't be selfish."

"You want to run away," Lorelai observed with a smile. "Please, feel free."

"Well, uh…bye," he muttered, walking away quickly.

Lorelai shook her head, stared into her Coke can for a few minutes, and then went back into the house to collect Rory.

* * *

Christopher had taken to calling every Wednesday. More or less. Rory recognized his voice and beamed whenever he could spare them a day or two out of his busy schedule. But Lorelai had never quite forgiven him for refusing to grow up and help her raise their daughter. As the months went by, the phone calls from Christopher grew short and perfunctory, and Lorelai would often just turn the receiver over to Rory, even though the little girl could only greet her father, answer his questions, and giggle. One day, however, when Lorelai answered and offered to put Rory on, he said,

"Just a second, Lore. I need to talk to you."

"What's going on?"

"Well…I'm moving."

Lorelai raised her eyebrows, even though he couldn't see her. "Moving? To where?"

"I have a job offer in San Jose."

"San Jose? Why do I get the feeling that's not in Connecticut? Or New England, for that matter."

"Because San Jose is in California."

Lorelai sat down hard on the bed. "California. You're moving to California."

"Yeah. In about a week."

"And…when do you plan on visiting your daughter? That's a longer drive than Hartford, y'know."

"Lore, I have to get out of here. I can hardly breathe in Hartford. The parentals are leaning on me to be everything Dad is, and I can't take it anymore."

"So you're running away."

"You're not exactly one to talk."

"Our situations are totally different and you know it," Lorelai snapped, getting up from her bed. "I left because I was trying to do the best thing for Rory."

"And you've got everything under control there, right? You don't need me."  
"_I_ don't. _Rory_ does."

"Look, Lorelai, just give the phone to her. I called to let you know and I have. You can't change my mind."

"Fine. Here." She handed the receiver to her daughter. "Sweets, your daddy wants to talk to you."

Rory took the phone with a smile. "Daddy!"

Lorelai walked outside and stared at the setting sun, crossing her arms over her chest and hoping that wherever Christopher was at the moment, he could feel her glare.

As soon as Rory had hung with Christopher, the phone rang again. Lorelai swept it up, feeling distinctly disgruntled. "Hello?"

"Lorelai."

"Mother."

"I haven't heard from you for awhile."

"Well, Mom, I'm busy. I have a job and a kid to raise. Anything I can help you with?"

"You needn't be so disrespectful, Lorelai. I was only wondering how Rory was doing."

"Rory's doing great. Why wouldn't she be great? She has me, doesn't she? What more could she possibly need?"

Emily frowned into the phone. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh, no, nothing's wrong," Lorelai huffed. "Christopher just called and told me that he's moving all the way across the country and now his contact with his daughter will be cut down to a phone call a week if that…"

"Wait, what do you mean that Christopher is moving?"

"He's going out to California, Mom. To live."

"Oh, my goodness," Emily said, momentarily at a loss for words. "And he just told you this?"

"Yup. Just a few minutes ago. Hey, it was advance notice for Christopher. After all, he doesn't leave for a week."

"Lorelai…"

"I'm sorry, Mom, I have to go. I have to think about this and try to figure out a way to not be so crabby. I'll call you tomorrow, okay? Goodbye."

_TBC_

_Read and review pleeeeease!_


	4. Popsicle Sticks and Promotions

_Standard disclaimer still applies._

"Mommy, the teachers want us to be early!" Rory insisted, tugging on her mother's hand. While the younger Gilmore was already dressed in her best dress with her hair in a neat ponytail, Lorelai remained buried under the mountain of quilts, one pillow planted firmly over her head. "There's a – there's a meeting!"

"Hrmph," Lorelai muttered from under the pillows. "Mrph shmick ahglen."

"Get up, get up!" Rory thought for a second, then, blinking her eyes very rapidly, said, "There's coffee!"

"Coffee?" Lorelai grumbled, her head emerging from under the pillow. "Where?"

"At the meeting! Hurry up and get dressed, okay?"

"Annoying perky child," Lorelai muttered as she stumbled towards their make-shift bathroom, which consisted of a toilet, bathtub, and sink surrounded by a pink curtain. "Who taught you to get up so early?"

* * *

They stood outside the school in the chill September morning. Lorelai hugged her arms closer to her body as she glared at her daughter. "The teachers had a meeting today?"

Rory looked down at the ground and shuffled her feet. "I just wanted to be early. I can't wait to go to school."

"Sweetie, standing here outside the locked door is not going to school. It's being crazy."

Rory looked up into Lorelai's eyes, her own wide with sudden fear. "What if they don't like me?"

"Oh, honey, they'll _love_ you. Trust me on this one."

The door swung open and a man in a gray janitorial uniform looked at them, surprised. "You're early," he observed.

"Yes, well, we wanted to catch our worms," quipped Lorelai. "Can we come in? This young lady starts kindergarten today."

"Is the teacher here?" Rory asked solemnly.

"Sure is, hon," the man smiled at her. "Straight down the hall and on your left."

"Thanks!" Rory exclaimed, pulling her mother down the hall.

"Well, hello," said a woman in her mid-thirties with glasses and brown hair. "I'm Mrs. Donnell. Who are you?" She smiled encouragingly at Rory.

"I'm Rory," the little girl answered softly. "Rory Gilmore."

Mrs. Donnell looked down at her roster and frowned a little, hunting for a "Rory Gilmore." Rory spied a small blue bookcase filled with books and ran over to investigate, while Lorelai moved closer to the teacher.

"You probably have her under 'Lorelai Gilmore,'" Lorelai informed her. "'Rory' is a nickname."

"Oh! Yes, here she is. I'll just pencil 'Rory' in next to it." Mrs. Donnell made a note in her book and then turned back to the younger woman. "It's nice to meet you…"

"Lorelai." Off Mrs. Donnell's confused expression, she said, "Yeah, I'm Lorelai, too. Named her after myself. A flash of feminism and a _lot_ of Demerol."

"Oh, so…you're her mother."

Lorelai tensed a little, but then softened at the complete lack of hostility in the teacher's expression. "Yeah, we get that a lot. I was sixteen when I had her. Her dad isn't around anymore, so we're all we've got."

"Mommy, look! _Corduroy_!" Rory exclaimed from across the room.

"Great, sweets! That's one of her favorites," Lorelai chuckled as Rory chose a blue beanbag and settled down with the book.

"She can read?" Mrs. Donnell asked, a little surprised.

"Yeah, she's been reading since she was four. I can't get her to watch TV or play with Barbies or anything. I tell ya, she's one weird kid."

Mrs. Donnell laughed.

"Mrs. Donnell?" The new voice startled both women into turning around. A petite Korean woman stood just behind them, her daughter beside her, studying her feet.

"Yes, hello, Mrs. Kim," Mrs. Donnell said warmly. "Lane starts school today?"

"Yes, she does." Mrs. Kim turned to her little girl. "Lane, go and be good." Lane walked away slowly towards the dark-haired girl in the beanbag chair.

"Those chairs I bought last week are positively gorgeous, Mrs. Kim," Mrs. Donnell said. "You will tell me if you get hold of a table to match them?"

"Of course. We appreciate your business." Mrs. Kim smiled perfunctorily before becoming all business again. "I brought Lane here to learn, not to waste her time."

"Oh…of course not."

"If I hear that she is spending all her time playing games, I will home-school her."

"Believe me, Mrs. Kim, we take kindergarten very seriously here."

"Today they'll be working on the cure for cancer," Lorelai cut in with a laugh. Mrs. Kim turned and glared at her while Mrs. Donnell shook her head and waved her hands wildly behind the shorter woman's back.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Lorelai Gilmore, Mrs. Kim. I'm Rory's mom."

"Rory? Who is Rory?"

"She's the little bookworm over there." Lorelai pointed to where their daughters were talking by the bookshelf.

"She is your daughter?"

"Yes."

"Your daughter."

"Uh, yes. Ma'am."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-one."

"And you are not married?"

Lorelai's lips thinned. "No. Rory and I live at the Independence Inn. I've been working there for five years."

Mrs. Kim said nothing further, but nodded a goodbye to Mrs. Donnell and swept out of the classroom. Mrs. Donnell exhaled heavily.

"That took guts."

"What did?"

"Standing up to Mrs. Kim. She's one intimidating woman."

Lorelai shrugged, a wry smile on her lips. "Compared to my mother, she's Puff the Magic Dragon. Hey, I'd love to stay, but I have to get back to work. Rory!" Rory looked up from her book and walked over. "Kiss." They kissed each other's cheeks. "Learn lots of stuff, kid. I'll be back this afternoon."

* * *

Rory sat at her table, studying her popsicle-stick structure seriously. She poked it a few times with her finger, but it refused to look any better than before. Sighing, she turned to the girl beside her.

"Is this fun?" she asked.

Lane looked up from her own stick house. "I guess so."

Rory frowned. "I don't think it is. I want to read more."

"You read a lot," Lane observed. "Do you like it?"

"Yeah. We have lots of books at our house. Where do you live?"

"I live in Mama and Papa's store. They sell chairs and tables and stuff. I like it. It's fun to play hide-and-seek in there, as long as Mama doesn't know."

They looked at their stick houses again. "I guess it's better than dodgeball," Rory sighed. "I don't like to play games with balls in them."

Lane seemed to be thinking. "Do you watch TV?"

"Sometimes," Rory shrugged.

"Do you like Cookie Monster?"

"He's funny," Rory giggled. "Mommy likes to talk like him when we eat cookies. She makes a big mess and then she has to clean it up."

"My Mama doesn't like Cookie Monster. She says he's bad. A deadly sin."

"Wow." Rory thought a moment. "What's a deadly sin?"

"Deadly sins are bad things you do that you can't fix."

"But Cookie Monster is just a puppet," Rory said reasonably. "He's not real."

"Yeah. I don't think Mama knows that," Lane said worriedly.

Rory turned back to her stick house. "It looks really bad," she decided.

Lane giggled. "Mine too. I hope we never do this again."

* * *

"Lorelai, will you come in here please?" Mia called from her office. Lorelai stopped her cart and walked through the door, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Yes?"

"Have a seat, dear."

Nervously Lorelai sat, looking up at her employer with worried eyes.

"You've been doing very well here, Lorelai," Mia began. "You're a hard worker, and you've learned to control that temper of yours over the last few years. The other maids respect you and look up to you, and that's very impressive."

"Thank you."

"I know Rory started school this week, and I know how expensive school gets. Clothes, folders, pencils, paper. Also, I'd like to repeat how impressed I am with the work you've always done here." Mia sat down on a chair next to her. "Lorelai, I'm promoting you to manager of personnel, of the housekeeping personnel at least. It's a salary job instead of hourly, and you'll be working with the head chef under Tyler to make things run smoothly here. Do you accept?"

"Oh, my God, Mia," Lorelai breathed. "This is…oh, thank you!" She threw her arms around the older woman and hugged her tightly. "Wait till I tell Rory!"

When she got back to the potting shed, she picked up the phone and dialed her mother's number. When Emily picked up, Lorelai jingled her new key ring next to the mouthpiece.

"Hear that?" she asked excitedly.

"What is that ghastly noise?"

"That is the sound of my new authority!"

"Lorelai?"

"Of course it's Lorelai. Who else would call you and jangle keys in your ear?"

"Naturally. My mistake."

"I got a promotion today! I'm manager of housekeeping personnel! Do you know what that means? I'm third in command! I'm two steps away from general manager, Mom!"

"Is _that_ all you called to tell me?"

Lorelai sat for a minute, stunned. "Mom, this is a big deal. I'll be making more money. I can buy Rory that pink backpack she wants."

"Yes, didn't she start school today?"

"She did, and we were there an hour early because she tricked me into thinking the teachers wanted to have some sort of meeting with the parents before the day started."

"Well, that's good. I hope you took pictures."

Lorelai paused for a moment. "Mom, don't you want to know about my new job?"

"You're a maid, Lorelai. I know what maids do; I employ a houseful of them. If that was what you wanted to do for a living, you could have stayed here and let me hire you."

"I can't believe this," Lorelai said slowly. "No, I can believe the way you're acting; I just can't believe that I didn't expect it."

"What did you expect to hear?"

"'That's great news' or 'Congratulations' or anything that might convey some small measure of pride in what I've accomplished."

"And what is that, Lorelai? You're a twenty-one-year-old maid with a five-year-old who lives at the hotel you work at because of some strange woman's charity. With all your brains and talent…"

"Okay, I give up. I'm done, Mom," Lorelai snapped. "I am sorry that you're disappointed in me. I know this wasn't what you wanted for me. Hell, this wasn't what _I_ wanted for me, but this is where I am. And if you think that I ever wake up in the morning, look over at Rory and regret her existence for even a _nanosecond_, you're wrong. I love her and I love my job and I love my life, and since you don't want to hear about any of it, you can bet I'll stop giving you the sordid details of my personal life. Got it? Call Rory, visit Rory, whatever, but you won't have to hear about me anymore. Rory gets home at 3:00. Call then. 'Bye."

On the other end of the line, Emily sat stunned, wondering what she had said wrong.

_A/N: Okay, I need a little advice here. I'm hoping to carry this two-part series up to the first season. This fic will end right after she and Rory discover Luke's Diner and move into their house. The question is, should I skip ahead six years and finish this fic in the next chapter, or draw it out a little more? Thoughts please!_


	5. Kissing Cooks and Cheese Houses

**A/N: **Ooookay, here we go. No Emily in this one, I'm sorry to say. I hope she'll make an appearance in future chapters, though.

I didn't really want to jump ahead, but that week was a bad week for me, creatively, and I could see no light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. All is well now!

**Anwa**: Thanks for your long review. There will be more town-ness in following chapters as Lorelai and Rory start to develop lives outside of the inn, and I'm completely looking forward to writing it! There might be a possibility of more interaction with Luke, but I want to keep him as kind of a dark horse until they meet at the diner. One reason I've kept him so much in the background is that he is such a huge part of the girls' lives later on, but I have a feeling that before he and Lorelai met in the diner he wasn't that present. Also, I'm glad someone else loves working with Emily. She's one of my favorite characters on the show – not that, in general, I'd want to know her or be her friend, but she is so multi-faceted, and Lorelai is so much like her despite her best efforts, that I find her fascinating.

**PixieStella**: There'll be more Sookie in the next few chapters, I hope. Silly Sookie went off to culinary school, so that's why she's been absent so much. I tried to talk her out of it, but these characters have minds of their own!

* * *

"Tyler, I'm taking my fifteen, okay?" Lorelai said to the concierge breathlessly on her way to the kitchen.

"Don't worry about it, Lorelai," he answered with a smile. "Your staff runs like a well-oiled machine." She flashed him a grin before ducking through the doors.

"_Oh_, my _God_, I need coffee," groaned Lorelai as she wove her way through the kitchen staff toward the coffeepot. "Is it fresh, Jason?"

"Sure is, Lore," the head chef replied. "Help yourself."

"Seriously, what single person needs four pillows? And who _complains_ about pillow mints? 'They're too flaky.' I'm tellin' ya, these people need to buy lives." Lorelai leaned against the counter and grinned at Jason. "How about you?"

"Well, apparently every single guest tonight loathes Italian food. So that's the dinner menu shot."

"Wow, you win."

"Thanks. Anything new and exciting?"

"Rory was invited to play at the Kims' after school today."

"You're kidding!" Jason nearly dropped the pot in his hand as he made his way over to the island. "Despite the fact that she's a love-child being raised by her single mother?"

"Yup, despite that. I just hope she doesn't come back hating me."

Jason glanced at her. "Not possible."

"Aw, you're just saying that to be nice. So, anything new for you?"

"Nope, not really." Jason dried his hands on a towel and gestured to a few of the other cooks. "That's dinner ready."

"And it looks incredible! Is that chicken da Vinci?"

"Uh huh." Jason glanced down at the floor and then met her eyes. "So…Rory's not gonna be around tonight?"

"Not till around eight; Mrs. Kim offered to feed her dinner. She probably thinks all she eats with me is junk, and I gotta say, sometimes that's the case." Lorelai stopped rambling and noticed that Jason looked nervous. "Uh, why?"

"Oh, well, I was just thinking that, y'know, you might get lonely without her and, after all, you just said yourself that you sometimes don't have food around, so I thought maybe I could take you out to get some dinner." Jason studied the floor. Lorelai stared at him, unsure of what to say.

"Jason, you're kind of…older than I am."

"Not by much."

"Your nephew Kyle is my age."

"Yeah, well, my sister's a lot older than I am."

"Like how much older?"

"Ten years. I was a bit of a surprise."

Lorelai thought, chewing her lip. "We work together."

"That we do."

"If it doesn't work, things could get ugly."

"I think we're both more professional than that."

She sighed. "What did you have in mind?"

"Nothing fancy," he said eagerly. "I mean, I look at gourmet food all day. But there's this place in town called Al's Pancake World…"

"Pancakes for dinner?"

"He doesn't sell pancakes."

"I like it already."

"Tonight's his 'international food night.' A surprise in every box. Care to try it?" Lorelai closed her eyes, thinking. He _was_ a little older, but guys her age kind of bugged her anyway. And he knew Rory, and liked her, so no awkwardness there. She opened her eyes.

"Sure."

* * *

"That was, quite possibly, the worst food I've ever eaten," Jason laughed as he and Lorelai ambled out of Al's and walked down the street.

"I don't know; I think the very well-fried rice was original."

"And who eats ice cream on spaghetti noodles?"

"I did."

"For about two seconds."

"You didn't establish a time specification. I ate it, so it counts."

They walked slowly around the square, Jason pointing out various buildings and describing their inhabitants.

"That's Miss Patty's dance studio. She was on Broadway for a few years and now satisfies her taste for the dramatic by being the gossip-queen of Stars Hollow. If there's anything to be known, she knows it."

"Oh, yeah, we've run into each other in Doose's."

"Her friend Babette Dell is her partner in crime. Between them, there's nothing they don't know or can't find out." They ambled past a building with shelves full of hardware supplies. The sign over the door read "William's Hardware." "That's Will Danes's place," Jason informed her. "Don't know how much longer it'll be here, though."

"Why, what's the matter?"

"William's not doing too well recently. When his wife Elizabeth died about ten years ago, he went a little strange. Just couldn't handle being without her. Then his daughter Liz ran off – she's your age, has a son a year or so older than Rory. And now he's started to get sick." Jason sighed. "Thank God he's got Luke."

"Luke?"

"Yeah, he's a couple years older than you. Ray of hope for the Danes family, that one. I think he's been going to college near here, but he must have graduated by now. He's always helped Will out in the store. You might have seen him at the inn; sometimes Mia has him do odd jobs for some extra cash."

_Handy-Man_? Lorelai had a sudden flashback: well-toned biceps in a white shirt and a particularly nice rear view. She hadn't seen him since. Shaking her head and focusing on her date, she smiled. "Hey, not that I'm not having a terrific time, but Mrs. Kim should be dropping Rory off soon."

"Oh, right," he replied. "Let's get going."

He walked her to her door, and they stood there uncertainly, both looking off into the trees.

"I had a good time," Lorelai started.  
"Oh, yeah, me too."

She looked up at him, her forehead wrinkling in thought. "Do you think we should…"

Before she could finish the thought, he leaned in and kissed her. It was nice. Pleasant. Friendly.

Boring.

When he pulled back, their eyes met and they simultaneously burst into laughter.

"That was weird," he said.

"Really weird," Lorelai giggled, wiping tears out of her eyes.

"So…never again?"

"Oh, no, never again. But hey," she shrugged, smiling up at him. "We tried, right?"

"At least we did that much."

"I'll see you tomorrow." She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. "Night."

"Goodnight."

* * *

At five past eight, Rory burst through the door, ran up to Lorelai, and threw her arms around her neck. Mrs. Kim followed close behind.

"Mommy!" Rory exclaimed, hugging her tightly.

"Hiya, sweets. Did you have a good time?"

"Uh-huh! Lane's my best friend!"

"That's great, hon! Why don't you go put your coat and backpack away?" Lorelai turned to Mrs. Kim. "Hello, Mrs. Kim."

"Hello, Lorelai."

"I hope Rory wasn't any trouble."

"No trouble. She is a very polite child."

"Well, good. Maybe next week Lane can come play with Rory after school."

Mrs. Kim paused. "I don't think that is a good idea."

Lorelai resisted the urge to fold her arms defiantly. "Why not?"

"Lane is very impressionable."

"Huh." Lorelai looked at the ground, then met Mrs. Kim's eyes. "Mrs. Kim, if you think I'm going to sit around and tell the girls all the great ways to get pregnant at sixteen…"

"I don't think such a thing. But Lane will ask questions. I want to be the one to answer them."

Lorelai nodded slowly. "Okay. Fair enough. Thank you for having Rory."

"Thank you for allowing her to come. Good night."

When the other woman had gone, Lorelai shook her head and sighed before joining Rory on her bed.

"Mrs. Kim's food is weird," Rory said, wrinkling her nose. "It tastes funny."

"Does it?"

"What's tofu?"

Lorelai grimaced. "Disgusting."

"Did you miss me?" Rory asked, pulling the covers up around her. "What did you do?"

"Uh…" Lorelai bit her lip. "Jason and I went on a…date."

"Cook Jason?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Well, because he asked me to."

"Why?"

"Because he thought it would be fun."

Rory crossed her arms. "What about Daddy?"

"Oh, Rory, sweetie, Daddy's in California. It's far away."

"So?"

"Daddy and I aren't together. You know that."

"You should be."

Lorelai was taken aback. "Says who?"

"He's my daddy!"

"Rory…"

"I love him!"

"Yes, honey, I know you love him, and I love him, and he loves both of us, but this whole family thing takes more than that. It's just not enough."

"Why not?"

"Because…because Daddy has things that he has to do, and _I_ have things that I have to do, and we couldn't do them if we were married. You wouldn't be here in Stars Hollow, and Lane wouldn't be your best friend. See? Things are good this way."

"Was I bad?"

"What?"

"Was I bad? Is that why Daddy left?"

"Oh, no. Your dad loves you so much, Rory; he is absolutely crazy about you. But he just can't be here right now. It has _nothing_ to do with you. I promise. Okay?"

Rory shrugged. "Okay."

Lorelai studied her. "Uh-oh."

"What?"

"You look really serious."

"Uh-uh."

"Know what I think? I think…" Lorelai crept towards her daughter, who shrank underneath the covers, her eyes suddenly sparkling. "…you need a visit from…the _Tickle Monster_!" Lorelai dove at Rory, tickling her until she was hoarse with laughter. When she sat up, Rory leapt at her mother, tickling her feet. Lorelai managed, through great effort, not to react.

"You're not ticklish?" Rory asked, pouting.

"Sorry, kid."

"No fair."

"Heeeyy, that is one great pout you have going there." Lorelai chucked her under the chin.

Rory smiled. "When I pouted in school, Brad Shannon gave me his cookies."

"Oh, my God," Lorelai laughed. "You are truly my daughter."

As she tucked the covers more closely around Rory, Rory said sleepily, "Lane and I are going to live together when we grow up."

"You are?"

"In a cheese house."

"Cheese?"

"We like cheese."

"Okay."

"Or a Brillo pad house."

"Uh, why Brillo pads?"

Rory giggled softly. "They're funny."

"_You're_ funny," Lorelai informed her, kissing her on the cheek.

"Will you be with us?" Rory's eyes were closing, and her voice was getting fainter.

"Always, sweets."


	6. French MiniTylers, Lilliputian Radishes

Thanks for the reviews, keep 'em comin'! In this installment of _The Gilmore Way: Making Their Way_, we welcome back Sookie St. James and meet Michel Gerard. Hurrah! For those of you who don't know, "The Gilmore Way" was the working title for _Gilmore Girls_, and they changed it.

Again, _please_ keep the reviews coming. I have very little in my life.

Disclaimer, and all that.

* * *

"I've hired three new maids, and Kelsey is about to have her baby which means she'll be quitting soon. You'll need to have the new maids trained by the end of the week."

"No problem, Mia," Lorelai said confidently.

"Jason, I have good news for you, too. I've hired a new chef for you."

"Thank God," Jason laughed. "Ever since Mark left in the spring, things have been rough."

"This young lady graduated this spring from one of the top culinary schools in Connecticut, and the best part is that we all know her."

Jason, Tyler, and Lorelai exchanged glances. "We do?" they chorused.

"It's Sookie St. James."

Lorelai grinned. Tyler laughed at Jason, whose face was a picture of despair.

"Not – not that kid who was always following me around the kitchen?" he croaked. "She's made clumsiness a medical condition!"

"Hey, watch who you call a kid," Lorelai said in a mock-serious voice, shaking her finger at him. "She's my age, and you asked me out."

Jason rolled his eyes as Tyler and Mia laughed.

"She'll start next week, Jason," Mia said sternly, forcing her face into a serious expression, "and she's supposed to be absolutely brilliant. Her teachers just rave about her.

"And Tyler, since you're starting your new job in New York next year, I've hired someone for you to train. His name's Michel Gerard, and he comes highly recommended from the Grand Hôtel in Champagne."

"Why did he come over here from France?" Lorelai asked, sounding a little awed.

Mia smirked. "He claims most French people are insufferable."

Tyler snorted. "Is that so?"

"Why is it that Tyler gets a highly-skilled French mini-him and I get Sookie St. James?" Jason griped.

"Oh, stop it," Mia scoffed. "If none of you have anything important to say, you can go."

* * *

When Emily heard the phone ring, she didn't reach for it hastily as she had during the first few years that Lorelai and Rory had been gone. Lorelai's calls had been coming less and less frequently, and Emily could feel the tenuous relationship they'd been building deteriorating.

So when the maid handed her the phone, saying, "Miss Gilmore," Emily refrained from snatching it out of her hand and managed to keep her voice slightly bored.

"Hello?"

"Grandma!" exclaimed the voice on the other end of the line. "I did it!"

"Rory? What on earth…?"

"I used the phone!"

"Rory, is your mother there?"

"No, Mommy had to go to a meeting at the inn. So I called you!"

"Well, it's…it's good to hear from you. How is school?"

"School is great," Rory said happily, jumping up on her bed. "I made a new friend! Her name is Lane, and she's really fun. Her mama has a house full of old chairs and stuff and it's fun to play hide-and-seek."

"Well, that's wonderful, dear. Is anything else going on there?"

"Mommy went on a date with Jason."

"Jason? Who is Jason?" Emily's grip on the phone tightened.

"He's the main cook at the inn. He's really nice."

"Rory, Rory, hunky-dory!" Lorelai's voice called in the background.

"Hi, Mommy!" Rory called without covering the mouthpiece. Emily winced.

"Oh, my God, Rory, what are you doing with the phone?"

"I called Grandma."

"C'mon, hand it over. Mom?"

"You went out with a cook?"

Lorelai sighed, a deep, heaving sound of longsuffering. "Hello, Mother."

"Why was Rory by herself?"

"Well, because I gave the nanny and the butler the day off."

"That was very irresponsible of you, Lorelai."

"Anything else you'd like to lecture me about? Cause I'm kind of in a rush here."

"What's next? Will you place her in front of an outlet, hand her a fork and tell her to have fun?"

"Goodbye, Mother."

* * *

"…and while you're here, you, my friends, are the backbone of this establishment. It's up to you to keep our guests happy and accommodated. If a man in a single room says that he wants three extra towels, you don't ask questions. You give him the extra towels. Turndown services are not an opportunity to flirt with guests or form lifelong friendships. You are here to serve a function. Clear?" Lorelai paused, looking at the new employees in front of her. When they said nothing, she continued. "Okay, then; off you go."

As her ranks walked off, Lorelai approached the front desk. "Hey, Tyler. How's it goin', Michel?" She winked at the trainee, leaning on the desk.

"_Do_ not wink at me," he drawled in a thick French accent. "This is not a bar; I am not serving martinis."

"Wow, he's a barrel of laughs," Lorelai muttered to Tyler.

"He's a pain, but he's really good," Tyler answered, eyeing his replacement. "I might be able to quit early at this rate."

A resounding crash came from the kitchen. Michel examined his cuticles disinterestedly while Lorelai and Tyler made a mad dash for the kitchen door. Sookie sat on the floor among a litter of pots and pans, and Jason was courageously battling a grease fire on the range.

"It's okay! I'm okay!" Sookie insisted as Lorelai bent to help her to her feet and Tyler ran over to help Jason.

"Sookie, sweetie, you need to be careful," Lorelai admonished her.

"I know…"

"Can you move everything?"

"Yes, everything's just fine. Except maybe the range."

Lorelai looked over at the stove. "No, they've got that under control, too."

"Oh, hey, we need to talk," Sookie said suddenly. "We haven't talked in forever. Want to do lunch?"

"If you're still alive by then."

"I'll be extra careful, just in case."

* * *

"I can't believe it's been four years since I saw you," Sookie gushed as they ate in the employees' lounge. "I mean, I came back for breaks and everything."

"Well, Rory and I don't get out much. I hope now that she's in school we'll be less hermit-y."

"Has she really started school? Wow, I can't believe she's grown up that fast."

"I know. I walked in from a meeting the other day and found her using the phone. I was so freaked out that she's that old."

"Is there anything new? I mean, in the _love_ department?" Sookie winked, picking up her glass of water.

Lorelai smirked, a twinkle in her eye. "I went out with Jason."

Sookie choked, spewing water all over her food. "Oh, my God."

"Relax. We're just friends."

"Y'know, I know a couple of guys I could introduce you to," Sookie offered, mopping the table with her napkin.

"That's nice but totally unnecessary. Not many guys are keen on a single mother who works as a maid. Something about that just doesn't scream 'terrific catch.'"

"Well, you won't be a maid forever, right? I mean, eventually you'll get another job or something?"

"I've been thinking about that recently. And I've decided that I really want to work up to general manager here. Eventually maybe I could open my own inn."

"Oh, that would be great!"

"I know, right? I mean, I've been working here for six years, and I just love the business. What about you; what do you want to do?"

"Well, I hope one day Jason will decide that the Independence is too small-town for him and quit, so maybe I'd be head chef."

"Well, you're well on your way, if this lasagna is any indication," Lorelai muttered through a mouthful of pasta. "Heaven on a plate."

"Hey, I have an idea! Let's say that, eventually, you get to be general manager and I get to be head chef. What if we branch off and open an inn _together_?"

"If we work well together, it's a plan. But let's take sort of a temporary oath and then later we can swear a more permanent one, okay?"

"Okay," Sookie giggled and lifted her glass in a toast. "To Jason's quick retirement!"

"What about my retirement?" groused Jason, poking his head into the lounge and scowling at his new cook.

"Oh! Uh…nothing," she said, blushing.

"Produce guy is here," Jason informed her gruffly. "And since you refused to use the tomatoes yesterday, and the lettuce the day before that, maybe you should be here to personally inspect the radishes."  
"Um, okay…"

"Hurry up. Jackson's getting impatient." Jason walked out, letting shutting the door a little harder than necessary.

"Jackson?" Lorelai said, confused. "I thought our produce guy was Sam."

"Jackson's his son. A little older than we are. Took over the business not too long ago."

"Ah."

When Lorelai walked past the kitchen door a few minutes later, Jason had taken refuge in the lobby, standing by the door with his arms crossed and a heavy frown on his face.

"They're too small! They're puny! There's isn't enough meat on there to feed a mouse!" Sookie was yelling.

"They are not small! These are _radishes_, Sookie; they're _supposed_ to be that size!" Those dulcet tones could only belong to Produce Guy.

"Maybe in Lilliput, but _here_ they're supposed to be bigger!"

"I am not taking them back!"

"I am not paying full price for them!"

"Oh, yes you are!"

"Huh," Lorelai said to Jason, leaning against the wall. "Love at first sight."

"I know a good florist," Jason sighed. "I'll recommend her for their wedding. Or their funerals. Whichever comes first."

"So what do you think?"

"She's good," he said grudgingly. "I hate to admit it, but she's fantastic. Knows her stuff, too. She can tell from three feet away if a dish has too much salt in it. Pretty soon I'll be obsolete."

"Aaww, don't say that. We'll still need you around to fight fires."

Jason snorted. "You have fire extinguishers for that."

Lorelai frowned at him. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It just feels like the end of an era. Tyler's leaving. When Sookie's more comfortable I'll probably leave. And you…?"

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere." Lorelai shook her head to emphasize the fact. "Not until Rory's older, anyway. We're so close to the elementary school here it'd be a shame to move. Maybe when she starts middle school."

"Jason?"

Jason and Lorelai turned to face Mia, who was coming towards them, Tyler in tow. "Where is Sookie? I'm afraid I have some bad news."

Jason disappeared into the kitchen and returned a few seconds later, dragging a reluctant Sookie, who was clutching a fistful of radishes. "What's the matter, Mia?"

"Young Lucas Danes just called," Mia said gravely. Sookie and Jason went rather pale. "William died last night."

"Oh, no," Sookie said softly, the radishes falling to the floor. "Did he sound all right?"

"You know Lucas. He sounded as if he were telling me that it's going to rain tonight. But I doubt he's at all fine; they were so close." Mia took a deep breath. "He was hoping you would cater the funeral, Jason. He's got so much else to arrange…"

"Of course, no problem. Is Liz still around?"

Tyler shook his head. "She took Jess and cleared out with Jimmy months ago. Left Luke to deal with it all on his own."

The four of them walked off, and Lorelai stood by herself, watching them prepare to help this man, whom they'd known all their lives, through a devastating time, and felt suddenly and horribly alone.

* * *

When she got back to her room that night, she dialed Christopher's California number. It rang four times before the answering machine picked up.

"Hey, it's Chris Hayden, but you probably knew that since you called me. Anyway, you know what to do." BEEP

"Hi, Christopher, it's Lorelai," Lorelai said uneasily. "I was just…I wanted to see how you were cause I wanted to talk to someone and I'm lonely and before all this stuff happened you were my best friend. Somebody died last night and today I was watching all these people get ready to help his family, and I know they'd all help me, but it's not the same, y'know?" Lorelai sat on the bed and leaned against the headboard. "They're my friends and all, but you're my best friend and you know me really well, and you're not here. And I miss you, and Rory misses you. Your machine's probably gonna cut me off, so I'm gonna go. Just…call sometime, all right? Bye."

Half an hour later, when Rory had come back from yet another playdate at Lane's house and was watching TV, the phone rang. Lorelai dove for it.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Lore. That was some message."

Lorelai sniffed. "Yeah, well, I was under the influence."

"Right."

"Of stupidity."

"That I believe." Christopher paused. "Hey, look, I know this sucks, but we're still a team, okay? If you ever need me, really need me, I'll be there. Got it?"

"Yeah." Lorelai smiled. "Thanks. You wanna talk to Rory?"

"You have to ask?"

"Rory! Your dad's on the phone!"

Rory jumped up and grabbed the receiver. "Daddy! When are you coming to see me?"

"I'll be around for Christmas, kiddo. Count on it."

* * *

Next time, keep an eye out for Luke, Babette, and Morey! Peace out. 


	7. Ducks in Connecticut? In December?

I love it when my muse is on overtime...as promised, Luke, Babette, and Morey make brief appearances.  
Thanks for the responses, they make my day. Really. Any day that includes a little email in my inbox from a reader is a perfect day in my book.  
Enjoy!  
Standard disclaimer.

* * *

"What's that?" 

"That, my love," Lorelai said, lovingly caressing the brochure in her hands, "is Harvard University. And because you are so incredibly smart, that is where you are going when you graduate."

Rory looked at her, puzzled. "For middle school?"

"Oh, no, sweetie. Harvard is a college. The best college in the whole world. It's where I wanted to go."

"Why didn't you?"

Lorelai grinned. "You.Harvard kind of encourages graduating high school."

"Oh." Rory studied the brochure. "It's pretty."

"Yeah, it really is. Hey, do you want to go feed the ducks? I think our bread went stale so we have some crumbs."

"Yeah!"

They walked slowly down the path towards the pond, Rory trying to remember the names that she had given all of the ducks. Lorelai was laughing and suggesting more and more outrageous names when Rorycouldn't remember.

Rory was counting on her fingers. "Donald, Daisy, Daffy…um…"

"Gerschnitzel?"

"No! And Penny, Patty, Lane…uh…"

"Schnickelfritz?"

"Mom!"

They giggled together as they neared the pond, but when they rounded the corner, Lorelai grabbed Rory's arm and pulled her to a stop. A young man was sitting on the footbridge, leaning his elbows on his legs, staring into the water. He was wearing a white dress shirt and black slacks, a black jacket next to him on the wooden planks. And he looked absolutely miserable.

Rory tugged on Lorelai's hand. "Mom, who is that?" she whispered. "He looks sad."

Lorelai held on more tightly to Rory's hand and steered her away from the pond. "Hon, someone died the other day. I think that's his son."

"What's his name?"

"I can't remember. Duke, or something."

"He looked really sad."

"I know."

"So we can't feed the ducks?" Rory looked at her bag of crumbs forlornly.

"Aw, not today. I think he needed to be alone. Let's just walk around town a little, okay?"

"Okay." They were silent for a few minutes. "I miss Dad," Rory said suddenly as they passed the gazebo.

Lorelai glanced at her. "I know, babe. But Christmas is coming soon. He'll visit then."

"And you'll see Grandpa."

"Uh-huh."

"Duke won't get to see his dad at Christmas," Rory said solemnly.

"No, sweetie, he won't."

"So we're lucky."

Lorelai bit her lip, ruffling her daughter's hair. "Yeah, we are."

As they turned a corner, Rory gasped and Lorelai followed her gaze. In a yard populated by at least a dozen garden gnomes stood a diminutive house. It looked like it had been built specifically for a person no taller than five feet. Rory started giggling.

"It's so small!"

"Yeah, it is. Look at all the funny little gnomes, Rory!"

The tiny door opened and a petite woman with a lot of teased blonde hair walked out. She was followed by a man who was so tall that he was nearly bent in half trying to get through the door. The woman stopped dead when she saw Lorelai and Rory.

"Oh, my gosh!" she exclaimed. "You must be Lorelai and Rory!"

Lorelai blinked in surprise and Rory looked up at her, confused. "Do we know her?" she whispered.

"No," Lorelai whispered back. "Uh, hi!" she called to the odd couple surrounded by gnomes. "Yeah, that's us. It's nice to meet you…"

"I'm Babette, and this is Morey. We're just on our way to Will Danes's funeral. You girls going?"

"Oh, no, we didn't know Mr. Danes," Lorelai said quickly. "We were just…heading home."

"Oh, well…it was nice to meet you girls."

Morey nodded at them, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. "Stay cool."

"Uh, we'll try."

When they were out of sight, Rory tugged on Lorelai's handand pointed at the house next door. "That's a nice house, Mom."

Lorelai grinned. "Yeah, it is. Maybe when I win the lottery we can buy it."

Rory frowned at her. "You don't like the lottery."

"It was a joke."

"Oh. So does that mean we can't buy the house?"

"Hmm." Lorelai studied the two-story house with the large porch. "Maybe someday."

* * *

Christmas was her favorite time of the year. Emily knew and took great pride in the fact that her annual Christmas parties were unparalleled in her social sphere. Every year her friends and her enemies – all of whom were invited, purely for the sake of tormenting them – exclaimed over the perfect decorations, the delectable food, and the seamless and unobtrusive activity of the servants. How _did_ she do it? they would ask. Emily would smile, shrug, and turn away to issue some trivial order to a passing waiter, but she knew the answer. 

Detail. It all came down to detail. The candles could only be so long, the tablecloths must be spotless, and every servant's outfit must be meticulous down to the last cufflink. Lorelai might scoff at Emily's need to "control" everything so minutely, but Emily had seen enough high society parties gone wrong to know that one small slip-up could mar one's reputation as a hostess forever. All she needed was for the wrong person to see the waiter with his zipper down, or to notice that her champagne glasses were just a little on the spotty side, or to trip over a badly placed end table.

To Lorelai these accidents would be amusing. To Emily they spelled disaster.

Emily's attention to detail and her ability to spot problems from miles away were legendary. That was how she could tell, when Lorelai and Rory walked through the door on the night of the annual Christmas extravaganza, that all was not right in their world. They both looked beautiful. Lorelai had chosen a deep blue cocktail dress with a skirt that hit just above her knees and a halter-style bodice, and she had dressed Rory in a dark red velvet party dress and black Mary Janes. They were both smiling, but Emily recognized the faint tightness in Lorelai's smile. Something was wrong.

"Hi, Mom," Lorelai said, approaching her. "The place looks fantastic. I think this might be your best one yet." They rarely got along, but Lorelai would never make the mistake of criticizing Emily's party. She was among the very few who knew exactly how much work Emily put into these affairs.

"Don't you two look lovely," Emily said with a smile. "Rory, I love your dress."

"It's soft," Rory told her, petting it. "You look pretty, Grandma."

"Well, thank you, dear. Why don't you go say hello to your grandpa?" As Rory wandered off in search of her grandfather, Emily turned back to her daughter. "Were the roads bad?"

"No, everything was fine. Thanks for sending the car." This last was said rather grudgingly. Lorelai hated accepting favors. "You look nice tonight, Mom. Is Dad behaving?"

"So far, no impromptu business calls. I hope it stays that way."

"Well, good."

Emily hesitated. "Lorelai, is something wrong?"

"What? No, everything's fine. You made the apple tarts tonight, right?"

"Of course." Emily hid a smile. Lorelai had a weakness for the apple tarts.

"Well, I'm gonna go grab one or two. Or six or seven."

"Do you want a drink?"

"Yeah, martini, dry, with a twist. Meet me by Dad."

Against all prior knowledge of her daughter, Emily reached out and took hold of her arm. "Lorelai, please tell me what's bothering you."

Lorelai looked at her mother, then at the hand on her arm – gentle but firm – and took a deep breath. "Okay. Let's go to my room."

They stopped to let Rory know where they were going and instruct her to stay with her grandfather, and then entered the fairy-tale princess room that had been Lorelai's. It was meticulous, as always. Lorelai, however, barely glanced around the room as she sank onto the bed, wrinkling the perfect bedspread.

"It's Christopher," she said.

Emily sat beside her. Not too close. "Is he all right?"

"I wouldn't know." Lorelai fumbled with the hem of her dress. "He hasn't called in days." She looked up and met Emily's eyes. "He promised Rory he'd be here for Christmas."

"Oh, Lorelai, Christmas is two weeks away. He has plenty of time to keep his promise."

"Mom, come on. Our whole lives, we both knew the Christmas season started with your party. Everyone in Hartford knows that. They may as well mark it on the calendar. Rory thinks that way, too, and she's crushed beyond belief. The only way I talked her into that party dress was by reminding her that she'd see Grandma and Grandpa."

Emily ignored the brief moment of pride that swelled her heart on hearing this and focused on her girls' disappointment. "He loves Rory. If he promised her, I'm sure he won't let her down."

Lorelai huffed out a breath. "He could make a career out of disappointing us. He…"

"Mom!" Rory tore into the room, clinging to the hand of a tall, curly-haired young man. "Look! Dad's here!"

Lorelai stood, her eyes widening. "Christopher."

"Hey, Lore." He swept her up in a hug. "God, it's good to see you. You look fantastic." He turned to Emily, kissing her hand. "Emily, radiant as always."

"I wasn't expecting you, Christopher," Emily said rather tightly. If there was one thing she hated, it was an odd number at the dinner table.

"Sorry, Emily, but I managed to come in a little early. I ate on the road, so I won't mess up your arrangements. I'll just hide in the study till everybody's gone."

Emily nodded. "I'll send a maid to get you anything you need while you're there. Lorelai, Rory, please come down soon." She left them.

Lorelai stared at Christopher, unable to believe how good he looked. "Look at you, all tan and healthy," she teased. "Spend all your time riding the waves?"

"Nah, I don't have the balance for it. You can basically get a tan just walking from one side of the street to the other."

"How do you ride waves?" Rory asked.

"With a surfboard, hon," Lorelai explained. "It's an expression."

"Oh. Did you bring us presents?" Rory demanded of her father.

He grinned. "Sure did, sweetheart. But you'll have to wait a while before you open them."

"Planning on staying a while?" Lorelai asked.

"At least through Christmas, if that's okay," he said seriously, watching her reaction.

She beamed. "Oh, it's so much more than okay."

Christopher scooped Rory up and took Lorelai's hand, and they walked down the stairs together.

* * *

Okay, so I've just realized that the ducks would probably have flown south weeks ago. Oh, well. 


	8. Zero to Euphoria in 3 Point 2 Seconds

_A/N: Thanks for all reviews. Actually, I'm floored by how many hits this story has gotten. I realize that just because someone clicked on it they didn't necessarily read it all the way, but still._

_I hope that this chapter makes up for the **very** long delay. Sorry about that. Enjoy _

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

Every morning Lorelai would wake up with a muscular arm wrapped around her waist and wonder where exactly she was. And then she would remember. Christopher was there. 

She felt like she'd stumbled into a strange dream world. At six o'clock he would gently force her out of bed and towards the bathroom, laughing as she mumbled incoherent curses at him and brewing coffee with the small coffeepot he'd brought her for Christmas. While she was showering, he would make up the bed and watch television until she was ready for work. If there was one thing she disliked about working at the inn, it was that holidays were usually the busiest, so she rarely got a break.

But in the evening she would come home and find him sitting in the one armchair with Rory and a book on his lap, listening patiently as she read to him. He would smile, kiss her, ask her how her day had been, have coffee ready. Lorelai often thought that she'd imagined it all.

Mia noticed that something was different. "You look happy, dear," she'd said a few days after Christopher's arrival.

"I am, Mia," Lorelai had answered dreamily.

And she was.

More importantly, Rory was happy. Euphoric, actually. She had always been a serious little girl, but with her father near she smiled more often and giggled uncontrollably at his jokes. At night the three of them would sit on the floor and play, all of them together. Or Rory would read her parents a bedtime story.

And when she said, "Good night, Daddy," and he said, "See you in the morning, Princess," she smiled with the face of an angel.

That time of day was Lorelai's favorite. He would tuck Rory in, kiss her cheek, and then take his side of Lorelai's bed. She would snuggle in the crook of his arm, her cheek on his chest, and they would talk. About anything, really. Neither of them cared what they talked about, as long as they talked to each other. One night they renewed their old argument about Metallica versus Offspring. Another night they spun rosy, gilded dreams about what the future held for them: a thriving internet business for him, a successful inn for her, and Harvard for Rory. But usually, just lying there together was enough for the both of them.

When Rory's Christmas holidays ended, Christopher insisted on walking with them to school.

"I want to meet the teacher," he'd said. "I should, shouldn't I?"

Lorelai read in this his desire to stay for a while. She agreed enthusiastically.

"Welcome back, Rory!" Mrs. Donnell greeted her with a big smile. "Did you have a good Christmas?"

"Uh-_huh_!" Rory exclaimed. "Look who came! My daddy!" She swung on Christopher's arm, and he smiled at the teacher.

Mrs. Donnell raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Well, that's wonderful!"

"Mrs. Donnell, this is Christopher Hayden," Lorelai said, a blush rising in her cheeks. "He's Rory's father."

"It's nice to meet you," the teacher said politely, scrutinizing him closely.

"Likewise. Rory's told me a lot about your class."

"She's an extremely lovable girl, and an unusually bright one. We're glad to have her here."

Christopher grinned proudly. Behind them, a little girl called out their daughter's name happily.

"Lane!" Rory squealed. "Lane, this is my daddy!"

Mrs. Kim, who had walked in with her daughter, narrowed her eyes and glared at the young man standing next to Lorelai. Christopher squirmed slightly, scratching the back of his neck uneasily.

"I have not met you before," she said briskly.

"N-no," he answered.

Mrs. Kim glowered at him suspiciously a moment before turning on her heel and marching from the classroom. Christopher leaned in to Lorelai. "That lady's scary."

Lorelai grinned, kissed Rory goodbye, and they strolled out into the brisk January morning. The sun glittered on the snow that had fallen the night before, and the cold air stung Lorelai's throat slightly as she took a deep breath, linking her arm with Christopher's.

"It's so gorgeous out here," she sighed.

"We don't get much snow out in San Jose. I kind of miss it."

"I don't think I could live anywhere that didn't have snow," Lorelai mused.

"Really? What about all the dangerous roads and stuff?"

"I don't drive at the moment, so it doesn't matter. You know how I feel about snow. It's magical."

Christopher huffed. "Yeah."

Lorelai eyed him. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing, I just…I kind of hoped you and Rory would move out to California with me. It's gorgeous and sunny, and my job's working out really well so far."

"Oh, Chris." Lorelai withdrew her arm and looked at the ground. "I can't do that; you know I can't. I got a promotion at the inn not too long ago, and Rory's just started school."

"They have schools in San Jose, you know. Probably inns, too."

"I can't, Christopher. Rory would be heartbroken if we left Mia and Tyler and Lane and Jason…"

"Yeah, Rory told me about Jason," Christopher interrupted. "Glad you feel comfortable seeing other guys."

"Oh, you can't be serious." Lorelai pushed open the door of the potting shed and threw her coat on the bed. "You are _not_ jealous of Jason."

"Of course I'm not. I'm just worried about Rory. Did you even _think_ about how this would affect her, or are you that selfish?"

"I can't believe this. How can you say that? Everything I do is for Rory, Chris. I'm the one who dropped out of high school to take care of her. _I'm_ the one who has made a life for us out here. _You_ picked up and left for California without even thinking about how devastated she would be." Lorelai pushed her hair out of her eyes. "Jason is a nice, thoughtful, _mature_ guy who happened to ask me out. And yes, I did think of Rory. Did she seem traumatized to you?"

"That's not the point. What about me, Lore? I'm Rory's father. Did you think about _that_?"

"Are you honestly telling me that you haven't dated a single girl since you moved out to California?"

He said nothing.

Lorelai sighed. "Please, Christopher, don't do this. You're here; let's just enjoy it."

Christopher smiled, the smile that had the power to melt her knees. "I'm sorry, Lore. It's just that I love you both so much, and I've missed you like crazy. Forgive me?"

"Of course," she smiled back, laying one hand on his cheek.

Gently he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, reminding her of the primary reason they were standing in a potting shed after dropping a five-year-old off at kindergarten.

Then she remembered: the five-year-old was off at kindergarten.

* * *

"I have to get up, Chris," Lorelai said, laughing. "Our fridge is practically empty."

Christopher grunted, tightening his arms around her. "I need to lose some weight anyway."

"Well, Rory doesn't. Come on, let me get up."

"Fine, fine." He rolled away from her and she sat up, scanning the floor for discarded articles of clothing.

"Anything you want from the store? I've got some extra cash today so I can splurge a little."

"A Jag would be nice."

"Funny."

"I'm good, Lore. Honest. Couldn't be better."

Lorelai grinned. "I completely concur."

"As long as you come back, and fast, I'll have everything I need."

She leaned back against the headboard and reached out to smooth his hair from his forehead. He smiled up at her, looking as happy and glow-y as she felt inside. She wondered if she had the same gooey smile on her face, the same sparkle in her eyes.

"I love you," she whispered.

"Back atcha," he answered with a grin, kissing her fingertips lightly. She leaned down to give him a lingering kiss, and then hopped up out of the bed, struggling with her shoes before opening the pottery shed door. Before she walked out, she looked back at Christopher sitting in the bed, blew him a kiss, and waltzed out into the cold sunshine, feeling that life could simply get no better.


	9. We Are Family

After a much too long interval, I give you: a new chapter! I am sorry about the delay; I've found my senior year at college taking up more time than I thought it would.

**ProFfeSseR - **Thanks for pointing that out...I hadn't thought of it. It does raise the question of where exactly they got together, though, doesn't it?

Everybody else: thanks for the reviews and keep 'em coming!

* * *

The first sign that something was wrong came when Lorelai woke up one morning to find Christopher already dressed and sitting next to the bed, studying her seriously. Quelling the fluttering of uneasiness in her stomach, she smiled.

"Good morning."

"Morning."

He rose from the chair and walked over to the coffeepot, pouring a healthy amount of coffee grounds into a filter before walking over to Rory's little bed and kissing her on the forehead.

"Morning, princess," he whispered when she opened her eyes. Rory grinned widely.

"Hi, Daddy," she said before jumping out of bed and racing for the bathroom.

Christopher walked over to the coffee maker and poured Lorelai a mug, handing it to her without meeting her eyes. She took it with a bright smile and drank deeply, wondering what was wrong.

They walked Rory to school as they had done every morning, and then she left to do her rounds at the Inn. When she returned to the shed a few minutes before Mrs. Kim would bring Rory home, Christopher met her at the door.

His packed suitcase sat next to the armchair.

Lorelai felt her heart drop to her toes. She gripped the doorknob tightly to keep from sinking to the ground.

"You're leaving."

"Yeah. Back to the grind."

"You didn't say anything."

He sighed. "I couldn't, Lore. I didn't want to tell you."

"You'd better wait till Rory gets home, because I'm not doing your dirty work for you again."

"You know I wouldn't go without saying good-bye to her. I love her more than anything."

Lorelai bit her tongue to keep herself from saying she knew she'd regret. "Fine."

"I wish you would come with me. Both of you," Christopher said softly, reaching out to cup her cheek. "I still want to marry you, y'know."

She shook her head. "I can't. I have to stay here. I _want_ to stay here."

"All right," he sighed. "Just know that if you ever change your mind, I'm waiting with open arms."

* * *

Rory had never been so upset. Her precious Daddy, who had been there for so many weeks, had left her and gone to that strange place far away where she couldn't see him every day. Lorelai tried to explain to her that he had never promised to stay in Stars Hollow forever, that they had all known he was only visiting and would have to leave soon, but Rory shook her head stubbornly and turned away, tears running down her cheeks.

Lorelai, while hurt herself, felt helpless in the face of her daughter's sadness and anger. She was too young to understand all the reasons that Christopher felt he had to live and work so far away, and too old to simply believe that she would see him "soon". However, Rory was her mother's daughter. She still loved to go to school and visit with Lane. It was only at night when there was no Daddy to tuck her in that she became quiet and sad.

Mia noticed the circles under Lorelai's eyes and knew instantly that she was not as resigned to Christopher's leaving as she had insisted. She still did her work well, but was withdrawn and aloof. Tyler, Jason, and Sookie had all privately asked Mia if everything was all right with Lorelai; she didn't seem herself. Mia gave them the standard answer: as far as she knew, Lorelai was fine, Rory was fine, everything was fine. But she was no fool. She knew exactly what was troubling them, and would have taught that boy the meaning of pain if she'd had the chance. Since she couldn't, though, she was determined to see her girls cheered up.

"Lorelai, stay for a minute, please," she said at the close of the weekly staff meeting. Lorelai shrugged and sat down again. "You and Rory aren't busy tonight, are you?"

"No, I guess not," Lorelai answered. "Why?"

"I'd like you to come somewhere with me tonight. It's the weekly town meeting, and it's better than a night at the movie theater. I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

"A town meeting? I don't know, Mia," Lorelai said doubtfully. "Rory might get bored."

"No one's ever bored at these meetings, dear. Trust me. You've both looked so down lately. Please come."

Lorelai sighed. "All right, if it'll make you happy."

* * *

"Oh, good, we're right on time," Mia enthused as the three of them walked towards the dance studio. "Mark Cunningham gets a little irritated if anyone's late."

As Mia, Lorelai, and Rory took their seats near the back, the selectman banged his gavel on the podium. "Order, people!" he called. "Taylor, are you ready?"

"Yes sir, Mr. Cunningham," a man near the front said earnestly. He was around Mia's age, and stared up at the selectman with admiring eyes, his hands poised over an old-fashioned typewriter.

Mia leaned over to Lorelai. "Taylor Doose," she whispered. "His father owns Doose's Market in town. He wants to be just like Mark when he grows up."

"Right," Mr. Cunningham said, clearing his throat. "First order of business: the frightening number of speeders in town. Last meeting there was a motion for a speed limit of 20 miles per hour to be set and rigorously enforced."

"Twenty miles an hour!" exclaimed the short, blond woman Lorelai recognized as Babette Dell. "We'd never get anywhere!"

"What speeders are you talking about, Mark?" the familiar Miss Patty asked from across the aisle.

"Just yesterday some hoodlum came roaring down Main Street going at _least_ forty," Mark said vehemently. "I barely had time to get across to the sidewalk."

"Oh, don't exaggerate," scoffed another townsperson. "I slowed down when I saw you."

"Because you _knew_ you were going too fast! If you hadn't been going too fast, why would you have had to slow down, hmm?"

"Because you walk like a turtle with arthritis, that's why," answered the townsperson.

Lorelai laughed out loud in spite of herself, and blushed when the entire room turned to look at her.

"Is something amusing, young lady?" Mr. Cunningham demanded.

"No, sir," she said quickly, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl.

"I don't think I know you. Who are you?"

"That's Lorelai Gilmore, Mark," Miss Patty said eagerly. "She's been working at the Independence Inn for five years now. Isn't that right, dear?"

"Um, yes…"

"Hiya, sweetie," Babette called, waving energetically. "Why haven't you come back to visit me and Maury?"

"Oh, we've been pretty busy…"

"Lorelai's head of household staff at the Inn," Miss Patty informed the room importantly. "Worked her way up from a maid – and raising that beautiful little girl, too!"

The already curious crowd, ignoring Mark's calls for attention, now craned their necks to look at Rory, who was contentedly reading a picture book beside Mia. Lorelai stared at Miss Patty, wondering how on earth she knew all of that.

"Oh, isn't she gorgeous!" exclaimed one of the older women. "What's her name again, Lorelai?"

"Rory. Short for Lorelai," Lorelai answered. Rory looked up at the sound of her name.

"And just look at those baby blues," Miss Patty cooed. "She'll be a knock-out, that one."

"Just like her mama." Babette winked at Lorelai. "Wait till the local boys get a load of you two."

"You come to me when she's about ten or so," Miss Patty insisted. "We'll sign her up for dance lessons. She could be a prima ballerina – look at her feet!"

"I bet she'll sing," another woman argued. "Look at her mouth!"

"Actually, she wants to be a reporter," Lorelai informed them all proudly. "She saw Christiane Amanpour on the news when she was three and told me that's what she wanted to do. She wants to go to Harvard."

Mark threw down his gavel in disgust.

"Harvard! Well, the boys love a girl with brains," Miss Patty said with a grin. "Don't they, honey?" she asked Rory, whose eyes widened as she tried to hide behind Lorelai's arm.

"Some girls have it all," Babette sighed. "Me, I never was very smart."

"Aw, don't say that, baby," Maury said, reaching down to squeeze her shoulder. "You're smart enough when it counts."

"Well, it's been loads of fun, as always," Mia said, standing and taking Lorelai's arm. "But we really must be going. See you next week!"

"Lorelai, darling, if you need anything at all, just ask," Miss Patty said, giving Lorelai's hand a squeeze. "You're both part of the family now."

Lorelai gave a feeble kind of wave, took Rory's hand, and followed Mia out into the street.

"What was she talking about?" Lorelai asked when they were out of earshot and well on their way back to the inn. "What family?"

"The Stars Hollow family, dear. That's the wonderful thing about living in this tiny little town: you're never left to fend for yourself." Mia smiled at her. "You and Rory have just been officially adopted. You couldn't go without anything now even if you wanted to. We small-town folk, we watch out for our own. And we'll all watch out for you."

* * *

Read and review, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease! 


	10. Vignettes of a Summer

The first day that Rory woke up and discovered that she did _not_ have to go to school, she pouted. Lorelai, torn between amusement at Rory's passion for school and pride in that stellar pout, reminded her that she could spend all her time with Lane. Somewhat cheered by this thought, Rory rushed to the phone to call her best friend before Lorelai could stop her, and received the sharp edge of Mrs. Kim's tongue for calling so early.

Jason, the head chef, resigned in the beginning of June. He'd found a job in a restaurant in New York and insisted that in Sookie's more-than-capable hands the Independence Inn kitchen would flourish without him. At his farewell party he kissed Lorelai's cheek, hugged Rory close, and clung to Mia as tears streamed down her face.

"I'm sorry," Mia sniffed, wiping at her cheeks. "I'm such a watery old fool, but I hate saying good-bye."

"I'm not so good at it myself," Jason answered with a smile. "We'll keep in touch, though, I promise."

"You are not leaving for war," said a peevish Michel, who had been forced to make an appearance (Lorelai had threatened to rip the tag off his designer jeans if he didn't). "We will carry on quite well."

"Yeah, I'll miss you, too, Michel," Jason grinned. The Frenchman gave a haughty sniff and turned away. Jason caught Lorelai's eye and winked, and Lorelai smiled back, trying not to cry at this upheaval of a world that had offered her her first real home.

Having Rory at home all day was comforting and wonderful. She followed Lorelai around the inn as she had done for years, placing mints on pillows and replacing the soaps and shampoos in the bathrooms. In the evenings Lorelai would sew: she would start with the mending and end with her pet project, a quilt of Rory's baby clothes.

It seemed impossible that already enough time had passed to make the tiny dresses and booties and hats that Lorelai had so carefully crafted obsolete. She picked up a blue dress that exactly matched her daughter's eyes, and felt her own eyes sting with tears. She glanced in the corner at Rory, who was sitting in a tiny antique rocking chair Mrs. Kim had given her for Christmas and reading _Stuart Little_. She really was beautiful – untouchably so, with her shining dark hair and her porcelain skin and her brilliant blue eyes. Had six – almost seven – years really passed that quickly? Delicate fingers turned a page, and Lorelai blinked and looked away. Her other life seemed so far away, in another universe.

She was twenty-two years old. If all had gone according to plan, she would have graduated college this year, possibly engaged to marry Christopher. Maybe. He'd always been a little sketchy about the commitment issue. Either way, she wouldn't be here with a little girl unparalleled in her beauty, her sweetness, and her intelligence. She wouldn't be sure of herself and her abilities to provide and protect. She wouldn't be _her_.

Lorelai smiled again as she picked up her quilt. Her lemons had turned into the sweetest lemonade imaginable.

* * *

Emily hadn't seen her girls in weeks. So she called. She missed them. But she couldn't tell Lorelai that. Instead, she did the next best thing. She scolded her.

"Hello?"

"Lorelai?"

"Um, no, this is Veronica's House of Pleasure. How may I serve you?"

"Oh, for goodness sakes, Lorelai! Is that appropriate?"

"Highly, when your only daughter answers the phone and you don't recognize her voice."

"Well, perhaps if that daughter called and visited more often I could pick her out of a line-up."

"Oh, Mother."

"Well, that one looks like Lorelai, because I'm pretty sure she had dark hair…"

"You're behind the times. It's an orange mohawk now. Very trendy."

"Is that a joke?"

"Of course it is! Orange looks awful on me! It's really purple – brings out my eyes."

"You're exhausting."

"So I'm told. So…"

"Yes?"

"Well, you called. I assume you have something you need to talk to me about."

"I was just wondering if there was any chance that I might be permitted to see my granddaughter between now and her eighteenth birthday."

"Gee, I don't know…I'll pencil you in for the day after next Halloween, but after that we're pretty much booked."

"Lorelai."

"Mother."

"Why don't you both come up for the fourth of July? Your father's company is holding a barbecue, and they always have the most spectacular fireworks."

"A barbecue? I'm having some trouble picturing you and Dad wearing bibs and chowing down on wings."

"Do you want to come or not?"

Lorelai paused. "Sure, Mom. We'd love that. Just let me make sure I can have that day off. Holidays are crazy around here."

"The barbecue starts at 6:00."  
"Oh, that'll be fine. I'm on day shifts for the next few weeks."

"Day shifts? What does Rory do?"

Lorelai bit back a sigh and settled into her rocking chair, ready for a heck of a conversation. "Well, sometimes she follows me around the inn…"

"Oh, perfect. I'm sure her first words were 'dust buster'."

"Actually they were 'house-keeping,'" Lorelai retorted, then moved on quickly before Emily could retaliate. "But usually she stays with Babette, Miss Patty, or Mrs. Kim."

"Do you _know_ these women?"

"No, Mother. I saw them on the street wearing leather mini-skirts and fishnet tights and thought they looked nurturing. Of _course_ I know them. I've been living here for almost seven years."

Emily paused. Had only seven years passed? It seemed like a lifetime. "Well." Lorelai smirked, reveling in her small victory. "I guess I'll see you on the fourth," Emily said at last.

"Yes, you will."

* * *

"Mommy, I wanna be a dancer just like Miss Patty!" Rory announced one day when Lorelai walked to the dance studio to pick her up after work.

"You do?" Lorelai raised her eyebrows. She was pretty sure Rory had inherited her musical and artistic talent from her mother – which meant she had none.

"Uh huh! She gets to go places and dance a lot for lots of people!"

"Well, sweetie, maybe in a few years we'll sign you up, okay?"

"Okay." Rory hummed tunelessly (yep, her mother's talent, all right!) as they crossed the street. They picked up dinner at Al's Pancake World and tried to guess what was in the grab bags as they made their way back to the inn. Rory laughed at Lorelai's increasingly ridiculous suggestions, and when they finally got back to their little potting shed, they were both helpless with giggles.

* * *

Hundreds of rich people in suits sat at delicate glass tables in the shade of a marquee, eating exquisitely grilled steaks and shrimp. The adventurous ones had gotten barbecued ribs and were picking at them with their forks and knives. The men wore suits and ties; the ladies wore dresses. Lorelai, in comfortable jeans and a t-shirt, stood frozen at the entrance to the marquee, gripping Rory's hand and trying not to turn beet red.

"Lorelai!" Emily hissed, and Lorelai turned to see her looking mortified. "What on earth are you wearing?" she asked incredulously.

Lorelai looked down at her outfit, then met her mother's eyes defiantly. "You said it was a barbecue, Mom."

"That doesn't mean you need to dress like a cowgirl! And just look at Rory!" Emily stared in horror at the old clothes Lorelai had put on her.

"Barbecues are generally messy. And fun. I wasn't going to put Rory in her best dress and then have her ruin it."

"Ruin it with what?"

"With…with barbecue sauce! And anything else that might come along!"

"Mommy, I'm _hungry_!" Rory whined, tugging on her mother's hand and staring dolefully at the grill, where a white-clad chef complete with tall hat was turning steaks.

"Ah, Lorelai, Rory," Richard said, walking up to them. "I see you saw no reason to change before you came."

Lorelai ground her teeth. "Mom said it was a barbecue."

"And?"

"Forget it," Lorelai snapped. "Rory's hungry."

"Oh, I'll take her," Richard said eagerly, taking Rory's other hand. "Come on, Rory. Let's go find some food."

"Deserter," Lorelai muttered as Rory trotted happily beside her grandfather, who looked a little silly in his severe suit walking with a jean-clad little girl.

"Honestly, I don't understand you sometimes," Emily said, sounding exasperated.

"Mom, in the normal world, barbecues are fun. With messy food and watermelon-seed-spitting contests. I don't know what brain tumor made me think that this shindig would be like that, but that's what I thought."

"Why would anyone spit watermelon seeds?" Emily asked, baffled.

"So they don't have to swallow them," Lorelai answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Well, I hope you're happy – everyone here is talking now, saying that I couldn't even teach you how to dress properly."

"Extremely."

"Excellent."

Emily stormed away. Lorelai flopped down at a chair near a horrified woman in a huge millinery confection that had ten yards of netting decorating it. Lorelai waved at her.

"Nice hat."


	11. Gumbo and Bruce Together Again

By the time Rory's eighth birthday rolled around, Lorelai had become famous for her birthday blowouts. The little garden shed had more than once been the site of raucous affairs that often ended in one child or another getting sick, while the older guests enjoyed the more adult refreshments kept well out of reach. The Gilmore girls had effectively won the hearts of most of the town – Rory with her sweet-tempered personality, Lorelai with her fiery independence – and they had been crowned undisputed princesses of Stars Hollow.

That sunny day in October, Rory came home from school bursting with impatience.

"My party is tonight, right, Mom?" she said eagerly. "I told all the kids at school just like you said!"

"Perfect," Lorelai grinned. "I have got some surprise for you, little missy."

"What is it, what is it?" Rory jumped up and down, her hands clasped.

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise! Go put on the party dress I made for you, sweets. Hurry!"

By five o'clock, twenty-five seven- and eight-year-olds had swarmed the garden shed and the yard, and several of them, Rory among them, stood enthralled as Gumbo the Clown created balloon animals and juggled pins. Lorelai walked around the yard checking on everyone, grinning to herself at the success of this, the greatest of all birthday parties. The twenty pizzas she'd ordered were almost gone, and the cake from Weston's Bakery would be coming any minute. She congratulated herself on a job well done.

The collected kids squealed with laughter as Gumbo's balloon animals got crazier and crazier. A duck with a long tail. A poodle with five legs. An elephant with two trunks. Gumbo tried to squirt someone with his flower and somehow squirted himself in the face. He picked up the juggling pins and ended up hitting himself in the head with them and dropping one on his foot.

Lorelai frowned. That looked like it had hurt. Gumbo hopped up and down, his painted smile not hiding the grimace of pain.

That was when she spotted the cup.

It was red. It was on Gumbo the Clown's table. And she knew for a fact it didn't hold apple juice.

She hurried past the applauding kids and grabbed the cup off the stool.

"Hey, tha's mine!" Gumbo slurred angrily.

"I think you've had enough," Lorelai answered calmly, pouring it on the grass. She turned to his audience. "Hey, everybody, Gumbo's a little tired, so he's got to take a nap now!" The kids objected loudly, but Lorelai shouted over them. "Thank Gumbo with me so he can go home and sleep!" Reluctantly they clapped, cheering and thanking him for entertaining them.

"I don't wanna go," Gumbo protested as Lorelai tried to lead him away by the arm. "Kids're havin' fun. They like me."

"I know they do, sweetie, but you've had too much to drink."

"I don't wanna go!" the clown shouted, jerking his arm from Lorelai's grasp. "Hey, kids, I'm back!" he called, weaving back towards the crowd. "Who wantsss to play?" He stumbled a little and the children cheered, rushing towards him and piling on top of him.

"Gumbo, come on," Lorelai said nervously, tugging on his arm to get him stand.

"No! Kids don't want me to leave. Do ya?" he yelled at his admirers.

A cheerful chorus of "no's" was his answer.

"See?" he grinned.

"Well, you have to go!"

He ran away, ignoring her, and Lorelai stared after him in disbelief.

She was still standing there when the police cars rolled up onto the lawn. Maybe she could have heard them if she hadn't had the music turned up so loud. At any rate, the stereo was suddenly shut off, and the lawn descended into deathly silence.

"Who's in charge here?" shouted a policeman.

"I am," Lorelai called, stepping forward.

"I'm afraid the party's over," he answered sternly. "Someone at the inn called complaining about the noise."

"Crap," Lorelai muttered, wondering which snooty guest had finked.

"Hey, man," Gumbo said, tottering towards the officer. "This is _Rory Gilmore's_ party, man. She's, like, a princess."

"Princess or not," he answered steadily, "she has to follow the laws like everyone else."

"Don't yell at me!" Gumbo shouted. "I'm the clown!"

He leaned a little forward, breathing in the officer's face, and the officer grimaced. "You're also drunk. You're under arrest, sir."

"No'm not! I'm the clown!" Gumbo twisted, trying to get away from the two officers suddenly at his sides, leading him to the car. "Hey, wait! I'm sorry! I'll – I'll make ya balloon an'mals! Come on!"

"Officer!" Lorelai hurried over to the man who appeared to be in charge. "I am so, so sorry about this. My daughter's parties never get this crazy, and…"

"I have to write up a report, ma'am," he assured her with a smile. "Even though the guys at the office would have a field day with this one."

"Well, yeah, but we're not going to get in trouble, are we? I didn't mean to disturb anyone."

He paused, glancing around at the children who were watching goggle-eyed as Gumbo was read his rights. "All I'm going to need from you is a statement about the clown's behavior. Other than that, I don't see any reason to write up an eight-year-old's birthday party."

Lorelai sighed in relief and smiled. "You are a wonderful, wonderful man. My hero."

He raised his eyebrows. "Hero? I can live with that."

She fished a pen and a receipt from her coat pocket and wrote her name and number down. "Call me whenever you want me to make that statement, okay, Officer…?"

"Oh, sorry. Carlson. Rick Carlson."

"See you around, Officer Carlson." Lorelai grinned and went back to the group of kids, ushering them into the shed to watch movies until their parents came to pick them up.

When Lorelai tucked Rory into bed that night, Lorelai said, "I'm sorry about your party, sweets."

Rory grinned. "Sorry about what? It was the best party ever!"

She should have known it was too good to be true. Lorelai closed the door and leaned heavily against it. Two days after Rory's birthday party had been broken up by the cops, Rick Carlson had showed up at her door.

_"Uh, hi," she said nervously. "I'm not in trouble again, am I?"_

_"N-no, you're not," he answered, fidgeting uneasily. "Look, I feel like a jerk because you gave me your number to call you about the statement and I did, and then I sort of hung onto it."_

_"Hung onto it?" she asked, surprised._

_"Yeah, see…I kind of wanted to see you again but I decided it would be wrong to use information you only gave me for that reason to get in touch with you socially so I…just…came here."_

It had been pretty adorable, she had to admit, and for a while things had been okay. But he was so awkward with Rory. He didn't know how to talk to her, or play with her, or anything. It was almost like he didn't like her or want her around. So Lorelai had broken up with him. Anyone weirded out by a woman with a child wasn't for her.

And yet all of her boyfriends – not that there were many of them – seemed to have a problem with her. Some guys would just see Rory's toys in the yard and bolt. Others would pretend to like her, buying her presents she had no use for. But always the truth came out: no one wanted to date a woman with that kind of baggage.

Which was fine with her. Completely. She wasn't desperate. Or lonely.

The little garden shed was empty. Rory was at Lane's house. Lorelai dropped her purse on the armchair and fell back on the bed, closing her eyes wearily. There were times when she almost wished that she wasn't a mother. When she wished she'd stuck to going to Harvard as her major rebellion and left it at that, without the sex and the having a baby and the running away to start an adult life at seventeen. She was twenty-four years old. By now she would have graduated from Harvard and would be out in the world doing – what, exactly? Anything but this. Anything but working as head housemaid for an inn in Stars Hollow, Connecticut, and scrimping to pay for food to keep her and her daughter alive.

She hated these times, when she wondered what her life would have been without Rory. She hated herself for even momentarily wanting anything else. Rory was a perfect, beautiful, angelic little girl, a piece of heaven sent down to earth. And what kind of horrible person wants more than heaven?

"He's really big, Mom," Rory said doubtfully, eyeing the pony uneasily.

"Sweetie, you're the one who always said you wanted a pony, no matter how many times I've told you that we can't afford one. This is your chance to see what having a pony would be like."

Sighing, Rory allowed herself to be placed on the pony's back. She gripped its mane tightly in her fists and allowed herself to be led carefully down the path. Slowly she eased her grip and sat up straighter, a smile blossoming on her face.

"This is fun!" she called to her mother, who was walking beside her with a camera in her hands. "Are you sure we can't have a pony?"

Suddenly the pony stopped walking. Surprised, the man leading the pony turned to look at his animal as it dropped to its knees.

"Oh my God! Hang on, Rory!" Lorelai cried, rushing forward. The pony lay down its side and Rory fell off its back, tumbling down into the ditch. Lorelai knelt beside her. "Hon, are you okay? Anything broken, bruised, bumped?"

"I'm fine, Mom! What's wrong with the pony?" Rory said, jumping to her feet.

"Don't you worry about old Bruce, darlin'," the pony's owner said. "He's just…restin'."

"Resting?" Rory asked, patting the pony's side. "He's not moving."

"Uh…he's…real tired."

"Mom!" Rory suddenly cried, pointing. "He's dead! He's dead!"

"No, sweetie," Lorelai said desperately. "The nice man said he's just asleep. That's all."

The man picked up Bruce's hind legs and started pulling him down the road.

"But why…"

"Honey, he knows what he's doing. Come on, let's just go home."

Lorelai pulled Rory down the road back to the town square, but Rory kept looking over her shoulder, waiting for Bruce to get back up and walk along with his owner.


	12. A House and a Home

_A/N: Well, here it is, the final chapter of Making Their Way. Enjoy!_

She had been walking past the house nearly every week since Rory had pointed it out. It was small, but not without its charms. Twice she had tiptoed to the living room windows and peeked inside, planning where various articles of furniture would go. Yearly evaluations were coming up, and Lorelai was fairly certain that a raise was coming her way. The thought of owning her own house made her heart swell painfully. Maybe in a few years she could buy a car.

She knew Rory liked this house. She'd put it on her Christmas list every year since she was six, and she really loved the Dells, who lived next door. She spent hours playing with the gnomes that populated Babette's yard and trying to feed the fairies from the fairy ring – a tree stump to the naked eye – near their front porch.

As much as she loved the little shed at the Inn, Lorelai wanted desperately to be more involved in Stars Hollow. Besides the fact that living in town was more convenient – closer to the market and the restaurants and the bank – she loved the town itself. Miss Patty, former exotic beauty and current reigning busybody; Maury Dell, jazz pianist; his wife Babette, who collected garden gnomes; Taylor Doose, who having risen to two selectman _and_ inherited his father's market now considered himself the most important man in town; Andrew the owner of the local bookstore; Gypsy the mechanic; Kirk the, well, Kirk…the list went on.

In fact, Lorelai was certain there was only one person in town that she had not met: the elusive Luke Danes. She knew his history front to back because Patty and Babette had told her about a zillion times. He'd run track in high school; his mother died when he was young; his father a few years ago (she remembered that); after high school he'd gone to the community college. No one knew what he'd gone for, no one knew what would happen to Will Danes's hardware store, and every time Patty was forced to admit that her information had run out, she turned a fun shade of purple.

But Luke Danes wasn't the point. Stars Hollow was everything she'd learned to value, and she wanted to be part of it. She wanted to belong to it.

* * *

"Are we there yet?"

"Don't you dare start that, or I'll take us straight home."

"Mom, where are we going?"

"You'll see!"  
"I don't _want _to see. I want to _know_."

"We need to work on your sense of spontaneity."

"My what?"

"Spontaneity. Doing things without thinking about them."

"Why would I do that?"

Lorelai sighed. "How are you my daughter?"

Rory blinked, looking around. "The car stopped."

"Yes. It does that occasionally. Good thing, too, or we'd be driving for the rest of our lives."

"We're at a furniture store. A _used_ furniture store."

"I knew you were my smartest daughter," Lorelai beamed.

"I'm your only daughter."

"Blah, blah, blah." Lorelai hopped out of the car, which she'd borrowed from Sookie.

"Why are we here?" Rory called, climbing out after her.

"Follow me and see!" Lorelai singsonged, dancing towards the doors.

A few minutes later they stood in front of a row of used bookshelves. Rory's confusion was absolute.

"We're buying a bookcase."

"Yes!"

"We don't have room for a bookcase," Rory insisted, ever practical. "The shed is too small."

"We're not just getting a bookcase. We're getting a bookcase, and a desk, and two dressers!"

"Mom, you're crazy. We can't fit all that in the shed!"

Lorelai took a deep breath. "I know." Rory stared at her. "Babe…we're moving out of the shed."

"We're…what?"

"We're moving out of the shed. We have a house."

"A – a house?" Rory clapped her hands over her mouth. "A real house?" she squealed.

"Yes!"

"A house!"

"Yes!"

"Oh my gosh!"

"I know!"

They grabbed each other's hands and jumped up and down, squealing at top volume.

* * *

"It's really ours?" Rory asked in awe. They were in their new house, wandering around, picturing what would go where.

"Sure is, kiddo. Well, ours and the bank's. And by the time you're thirty, I might be able to pay it off."

"But it's _ours_." Rory wandered into the kitchen. "This can be my room, right?" she called when she discovered the small bedroom off to the right.

"Absolutely! That way I get the nice _big_ one up here!" Lorelai called from the upstairs hallway.

"There are lots of cabinets in the kitchen. What are they for?" Rory asked as Lorelai joined her.

"I guess some people put pans and stuff in them for cooking."

"Us? Cooking?"

"Strange, foreign notion."

"Very strange."

"We can put your books in there, then."

"I have a bookshelf for that."

Lorelai scoffed. "Right. And all my makeup fits in my purse."

* * *

Lorelai watched as Rory walked slowly around the garden shed, making sure that none of her toys or books would be left behind. She went about it as she did everything: slowly, methodically, her forehead wrinkled in concentration, eliminating every possibility before she was satisfied.

"Everything's packed, Mom," she said finally, joining Lorelai at the door. "Let's go."

"Wait a minute," Lorelai said, taking her arm to keep her from running out the door. "Just take a second to say good-bye to the old shed."

Rory turned and stared into the shed – the ancient flowered wallpaper, the tiny bed, the sheet hanging between the main area and the bathroom area. "It's so tiny," she said. "I'm glad we're going to the big house."

"But won't you miss it? We grew up here."

Rory's eyes softened. "Yeah. But we're grown up now. It's just time for a change." She turned and walked out to where Mia stood with her son John and his truck, loaded with their few belongings.

"Yeah," Lorelai said softly. "Time for a change." She went quiet, looking around her first home where Rory had said her first words, taken her first steps, read her first book. Memories crowded her mind, one after another, until they became tears and trickled down her cheeks. She reached out and took the doorknob, pulling the door shut. Before it closed completely she poked her head in again and whispered into the empty room.

"Thanks for everything."

The End

_A/N2: To be continued? I have the first chapter of a second part already written and I know what I want to do with it, but will anyone be interested in reading it? Review please!_

_Thanks for all the reviews, everybody. It's been a blast!_


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